Greenhouses operate with the same principle having glass or clear plastic all around it attracting and capturing the sun and not allow it to escape causing the greenhouse to stay very warm for the plants to grow effectively.

A home solar power system can cost you around $3,500.00 and more depending on many things, like the size of your home, the amount of appliances used, the size of your family, the amount of electronic components used and much more. There are some very good step by step guides with videos out there to help you build your own solar power system even if you know nothing about solar power. I have come across one package on the internet that claims that you can build your own home solar power system for about $200.00, now that is amazing and hard to believe. Think of all the money you will be saving and all the nice things you will be able to afford for your home with those savings and much more. You shouldn’t ask yourself how much does solar power cost but rather ask yourself how much money will I save ?

In time, solar energy helps to heat your home naturally without worrying about the high electrical bill at the end of the month. and without depending on a company to supply it for you. Solar energy is found wherever the sun is shinning.

The Original Post is Located Here: How Much Does Solar Power Cost

It is very possible to build a solar power system yourself by doing a little bit of research on the topic. If you have access to the internet like most of the planet do, then you will find some free and paid information about solar power Canada systems. Of course if you pay for the information, you will no doubt get a much better package put together, guides and videos for about $50.00. It is well worth the investment in order to build your own home solar power system for under $200.00 that will enable you to save thousands of dollars on your energy bill. After all, the sun is free.

Canadian houses like any other houses around the world are built to use solar power with just a few minor alterations to make. Make sure that your house is not blocked by huge trees, and also make sure you have plenty of windows facing the sun when it rises to the south side of your house. Solar Power Canada systems like in many countries don’t rely on the sun shinning all the time but rather, they are built to store a great amount of power from the sun in batteries. You can rest assured that even in the cold Canadian winters when you don’t see the sun for days, it is still possible to have sufficient solar power reserve until the sun makes its appearance again. You also have to lean how to conserve that energy by maybe converting to more power efficient appliances, electronic devices and light bulbs. You can also install ceiling fans to disperse the hot or cold air in appropriate seasons; metal insulated doors are also a good choice for keeping the cold out during those Canadian winter months. Solar power Canada systems are built for the primary reason of saving the planet and the environment. The second and obvious reason is of course saving money, a great amount so you can enjoy life a little more with the savings you will benefit from by installing or building your own home solar power system.

The Original Post is Located Here: Solar Power Canada

Solar photovoltaic energy converting sun light into electrical energy. The most commonly associated component are the photovoltaic panels or solar panels that you see mounted on roofs.

This article will be focusing on how photovoltaic solar power (solar panels) and systems work.

Why are solar photovoltaic panels always on the south (or north) side of the roof?
In order to get the maximum electrical output from photovoltaic panels they need to be oriented to solar south in the northern hemisphere and solar north in the southern hemisphere. Solar north and solar south are the same as magnetic or compass north or south. There is about a fifteen degree difference between them.

Most solar photovoltaic panels are set at home latitude plus fifteen degrees or home latitude minus fifteen degrees. Depending on if you want a summer or winter bias to the angle of the solar panels. In higher latitudinal areas it makes more sense to have the photovoltaic panels set on a winter bias, so that during the winter the solar panels still get enough sun light to produce electricity.

How does a photovoltaic cell produce electricity?
A solar panel consists of a collection of photovoltaic cells. Each photovoltaic cell is made up of silicon wafer. Silicon in its pure state is a poor electrical conductor. During the manufacturing process, an impurity is added to the silicon so that when the photons (light) strikes the wafer electrons are released and create electrical current.

The type of electrical current produced by a solar panel is a low voltage direct current, or DC, typically in the range of six to twenty four volts. Photovoltaic panels have a nominal output voltage of 12 volts and an effective operating voltage of 17 or more volts.

A solar panel’s electrical output is affected by several factors. They are angle of the photovoltaic panels to the sun, time of day, time of the year and weather conditions. Solar photovoltaic panels produce more electricity during the middle of the day when the sun is directly overhead compared to the early morning and late evening when the sun light is striking the solar panel at a shallow angle.

Components of a residential solar power system
A residential solar power system consists of four components are: photovoltaic panels, charging controller, battery pack and an inverter. The photovoltaic panels convert sun light into electricity. The electricity is sent to the charging controller who keeps the battery pack fully charged, but not over charged. The battery pack sends the electricity to the inverter who converts the DC voltage to household AC at 120 volts and 60 hertz.

Photovoltaic panel
The output of a solar panel is stated in watts. The wattage is stated is typically for peak sun hours. Since the amount of sun light varies through the course of a day, to level out the variations the peak sun hours has been adopted by most manufactures to help installers and customer’s compare different solar panel models.

Suppose a solar panel is rated for 100 watts and an average of six peak sun hours is available per day. Then the solar panel would produce 100 watts * 6 peak hours = 600 watt hours of electricity or 0.6 kilo watt hours (KWh).

Charging controller
Charging controller or charge regulator controls the charging of the battery pack. It continually monitors the battery pack’s charge state. If the batteries are low, it will send electricity from the solar panels to the batteries. It also prevents over charging of the battery pack.

Don’t allow someone to convince you that a charging controller is not really required. Directly connecting the photovoltaic panels to the battery pack can permanently damage the batteries and possibly cause them to explode.

Battery pack
The battery pack’s purpose is to store electricity generated by the solar panels during the day and then at night or during extremely cloudy days provide electricity to the inverter.

The battery pack typically consists of lead acid batteries. Lead acid batteries are relatively inexpensive and readily available. There are many different types, sizes and capacities of batteries available. The most popular are gel cell and AGM deep cycle batteries because they are maintenance free and last a lot longer than wet cell lead acid batteries.

The most important thing to remember about the batteries is that the need to be deep cycle. Deep cycle batteries are designed to be discharged then recharged hundreds if not thousands of times. A deep cycle battery is designed to discharged to nearly empty, but not completely and then be slowly recharged over time. A common mistake for home owners is to think that they can use automotive batteries instead of deep cycle batteries. Car batteries are shallow cycle batteries. They are designed to discharge a lot of current quickly and then be immediately recharged.

Inverter
An inverter converts the DC electricity stored in the battery pack into household 120V AC. Almost everything in your home is powered by 120V electricity. Things like table lamps, freezer, lights, motors, dishwasher, and so on.

There are two main types of inverters sine wave and modified sine wave. The power company provides electricity as a sine wave. The electricity’s charge value goes smoothly from positive 120V to 0V to negative 120V and then back up to 0V and finally up to positive 120V. Then the cycle begins all over again. The time it takes to go through the entire cycle is one second.

Modified sine wave is also known as a square wave. Here the electricity’s charge value goes from positive 120V to negative -120 volts in effectively zero seconds.

Most household devices will function on a modified sine wave power. Light bulbs and motors will work, just not quite as efficiently as they would on sine wave electricity. However, there are some electronic devices that will not work on square wave electricity. It will be necessary to check with the manufacture to determine if the device will work on square wave electricity.

Now you have a basic understanding of solar power how it works to power your home. Now you have enough information about how solar power works to determine if it is a technology that you would want to invest in for your house.

The Original Post is Located Here: Solar Power How It Works To Power Your Home

Advantages of Solar Power
Solar power is a renewable source generated from the sun, meaning that the solar energy source is never going to finish. So, we do not need to worry about we may jeopardy of the energy source if you over use it.

Solar power is environmental friendly energy source. Unlike oil, the use of solar energy will never causes green house effects or emits carcinogens into the air and causes the air pollution.

The sun is FREE. Unlike the traditional energy source which you need to pay more if you use more, there is not limit on how much you can use the energy generated from solar power, and you do not need to think of the electricity cost when you use a solar-powered energy generator, because the sun is FOC (Free of Charge).

Little maintenance cost on solar power system. Solar cells can last for a lifetime and because there are no moving parts, it needs very little maintenance. You do not really need to allocate significant budget for it maintenance cost.

Disadvantages of Solar Power
The key stopping factor that makes most of people who are interested to install solar power system is the total cost is expensive. A solar power system that provides enough energy to power an average sized home can cost anywhere from $6,000 to $20,000. Seeing the potential market demand on solar power system, the industries with continue research efforts are trying to reduce the material costs. Moreover, there are many simple-to-follow DIY instruction manuals had been made published to teach people how to build their own solar power system using cheap materials which can be found at local market.

The solar power can be generated without sunlight, which means the power cannot be created at night, during rain and winter season when sun is hiding behind the cloud. This had been one of key discouragement of using solar power as the alternative power solution.

If you build the solar panel at the roof of your home, it becomes part of the house. You may need to sell it together with your house if you decide to move to a new home. And you need to reinstall the solar power system at your new home.

Summary
You should clearly understand of both the advantages and the disadvantages of solar power system before you go ahead to convert your home to be solar-powered so that you can really benefited from the advantages of solar power while handling the disadvantages of solar power to minimize the impacts.

The Original Post is Located Here: Advantages of Solar Power Vs Disadvantages of Solar Power