Facts On How a Solar Panel Works

Solar panels, which are also known as photovoltaic systems (PV), consist of a group of solar cells. These solar cells contain semi conductive material called crystalline silicon. This crystalline silicon absorbs the sun's light and stores it very efficiently to be used for electricity.

These home solar power systems are usually attached to the roofs of houses, which will make electricity to power the entire house. They will produce enough power to run all the appliances, electronic equipment, pools, hot water tanks, outside lighting, etc. Larger buildings like hospitals, schools, hotels, and businesses can also benefit from solar energy. Although it takes a lot more panels to power these larger buildings, it can still be done very easily by just attaching more panels to the building. You can also store enough solar energy to power up these huge buildings at night and when it is cloudy.

In no time at all, you could build your own solar panel, generating power that will be stored in deep cell batteries for future consumption and it costs just pennies on the dollar! There are diy solar panels available for you to take advantage of the energy generating kit at home. If you are careful and make sure that you get the right instructional manual and videos, they are so easy to understand that even a beginner with no experience at all will be able to do this.

These kits should also let you see the history of many excited customers mentioning positive reviews about all the money they have saved. Most of them who have built the devices can't believe how simple it was and they are eager to share their success. They have actually saved 100% of their electric power bill!

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Build Your Own Solar Power System to Save Money

Solar power system is more efficient then other power sources. By using solar power for your home power supply, you will save up to 85% on your monthly electricity bill. Sun energy is captured through solar panels and converted into electricity which can be used to power your entire home. This is for sure also a great way to save money.

We need electricity for so many things in our homes; heating, air condition, refrigerators, ovens, computers... and when you use solar power systems, you remarkably reduce your demands for electricity. This of course has a huge impact on lowering your monthly electrical bills. The more things there are in your home that need power to operate, the more it makes sense to use solar power systems as a power source for your home.

Solar panels do not have a negative effect on the Planet. This is probably the most important reason why you should consider building solar panels for your home. They do not put off any pollutants such as carbon dioxide, so you don't affect the Earth's atmosphere in a negative way. Instead, you will be doing your part to help save the Earth.

Solar panels can be put pretty much anywhere. They can be placed on a lot of places, and when you place them on your roof, you do not see them or even know they are there. If for any reason they can not be placed on the roof you can place them anywhere as long as there is enough sun and no obstacles in the way.

These are not the only reasons for using solar power for your home electricity supply. If you do a little research you will discover even more reasons. Did you know that you will get payed if you generate electricity with solar panels in your home?

Discover how you can build your own DIY solar panels, save a lot of money, help to save the planet and in the end get paid for it!

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New Sources of Energy

Every day we use energy to help us in our lives. We use it for electricity, for heating, and to travel. Energy makes our lives easier.

Most of our energy comes from fossil fuels – oil coal, and gas. We use billions of tones of them every year for fuel and to produce electricity. Today, there is just about enough energy to go round. Demand is growing, however. Eventually, supplies of usable fossil fuels will run out. So what about the future? We will have to conserve our resources and develop new ones. Scientists and energy experts are developing power from renewable sources.

A renewable energy source is one that doesn’t run out, however much we use. There are certain processes that always take place on Earth. Somewhere in the world, the wind is blowing and the Sun is shining. Living things are growing everywhere. Water is on the move in rivers and seas. The layers of rock under our feet pump out heat. These constant processes are sources of renewable energy. We can use them to fuel cars, warm our homes, and make electricity. They will not get used up.

Find out more about energy saving systems such as Home Solar Power Systems, Home Wind Turbine, Magnetic Generator and DIY Solar Water Heater.

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Homemade Solar Cells

If your have bee searching for a detailed step-by-step way to make your very own homemade solar cells, this is definitely the right place for you.

Solar cell is the key component that allows home solar power systems to generate electricity from the sun. With this knowledge of making your very own homemade solar cells, not only you can build your own solar panel, you can also explore into the fields of building DIY solar water heaters and many many more.

The very first step is to prepare some essential items. These items include the following:

• Copper Sheeting
• Clear Plexiglass/Perpex/Acrylic Sheeting

• Some Thin Wood Strip
• copper Wire
• Duct Tape
• Metal Guillotine
• Bandsaw
• Electric Ring Hob

Next, cut a square of the copper sheeting so that it is about 6-8 in. square in size. It is much easier to do with a metal guillotine, however, if you haven't got access to this sort of equipment, tin snips will work just fine.

After you've done this, wash your hands thoroughly and dry them. You need to remove any grease or oil from your hands that could cause problems with the next step of the process. Remove any grease or detritus from the copper sheeting. Next, take a piece of emery cloth and thoroughly sand down the piece of copper on both sides to remove the top layer of oxidized copper. This will leave you with nice bright shiny red copper underneath.

You now need to heat treat the copper, in order to form an oxide coating on top. It may sound counter intuitive that we have just removed all the oxide and now we are going to put oxide back on, but the oxide coating we will be applying will be a film of "cuprous oxide".

You need to turn the burner to the highest setting, with the sheet of copper just placed on top. Observe the changes to the copper carefully, they are very interesting. As you heat the copper, it takes on a lovely vivid patina of different colours.

If you have access to nitric acid, you can use this as a superior method for removing the upper cupric oxide layer.

You will see a black crusty oxide from on top of the copper plate. If you leave the plate to cool slowly, the crusty layer should become fairly fragile and separate easily from the underlying copper. When you have allowed the plate to cool thoroughly, give the plate a firm bang edge-on to a hard surface. Some of the oxide will pop off. Rub the oxide gently with your fingers under a tap, and you will find most of the black layer od oxide comes off easily. If any bits are stubborn, do not under any circumstances scour them, as we do not want to damage the fragile surface.

Under this black layer of oxide, you will find another layer of a reddish orange rust colour. This is the layer which is "photosensitive" and will make out thin-film solar cell work.

Make a spacer now from some thin strips of wood. Use duct tape to join your pieces of wood together. Do not use metal fixings as they could react electrolytically with the other components of the cell.

We are now going to make another electrode. It has to have the property that it does not touch the other piece of the solar cell, and allows light to hit the surface. We are going to use salt water as our other electrode, making contact with the whole surface of the thin film cell, yet conducting electricity. We are then going to immerse another copper wire to make the connection. You could equally use another piece of copper plate around the outside of the thin-film cell, but not touching our oxidized copper.

In a commercial thin-film cell, tin oxide is commonly used as the other electrode, as it is clear and yet conducts electricity.

Now take a piece of Perspex to act as a cover plate, and stick a strip of duct tape on either side.

We are going to stick our other electrode wire to this piece of Perspex.

Use thickish wire for clarity, with few actual zigzags so that you can clearly see what is going on. To optimize the performance of your solar cell, you want to make the conductor large. To this end , you are better using lots of thinner gauge wire in a much finer zigzag pattern - this will still allow the light to get through, but at the same time gives a large conductor area.

You can experiment with different types of wire and copper - the trick is to try and maximize the surface area of the copper, while trying to block as little light as possible from reaching the solar cell.
Fold the duct tape over and stick the wire to the plate.

We are now going to combine the electrode plate with the space. Again, duct tape makes this a nice easy job.

Next, we are going to take the copper plate, and stick duct tape to one side, with the sticky side of the tape facing the same direction as the layer of red copper oxide.

Combine the plate and the front module to make the finished solar cell.

Now, take a little salt water, and fill the void between the Perspex front section and the copper plate. Seal the module with duct tape all round to prevent leakage.

Lastly, connect your module to a multimeter, find a bright light source, and explore some of the electrical properties of your solar cell.

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Solar Hot Water Heaters

By learning the relatively easy method of making your very own solar hot water heaters, you can make this expense unbelievably minimal and learn a lot about the application of these systems at the same time.

Using the sun to heat domestic hot water is the most practical application of solar energy at this time. While vast improvements to design and a reduction in the cost of photovoltaic cells are making other solar systems very practical as well, heating water for your home is the easiest and least expensive way to get involved in a solar energy solution for your home.

The DIY solar hot water heaters of today are as equally effective as hot water heaters powered by more conventional power sources, namely: gas and electric. A solar hot water panel can heat your home’s water to temperatures of up as much as 140° F.

Generally, there are two kinds of solar hot water heater – passive and active. Both collect radiant heat from the sun into a solar hot water panel, and both can serve much of any household’s hot water needs, while at the same time, both can cut back considerably on energy costs.

An active system circulates water (or other heat-transferring fluids) through a solar water pump, while a passive system circulates the liquid(s) through use of a process called natural convection.

Whichever type of solar hot water heater system one uses, both utilize certain similar components, most notably: a collector and a storage tank.

The most common type of collector is a “flat plate” solar hot water panel – a weatherproof, insulated box made of aluminum or other metals that holds, beneath one or more transparent covers, an absorber plate.

When sunlight streams into the box, its heat passes through the transparent cover or covers and is soaked up by the dark plate which then transfers that collected heat through the heat-transferring fluids that flow through or past it.

A more expensive but often more powerful alternative to the flat plate solar hot water panel is a concentrating collector. These have the potential to produce much higher temperatures than flat plate panel solar water heater systems, although on cloudier days they can actually be less effective than their more economical counterparts.

Though storage tanks are not a required component of solar hot water heaters, without them one can only utilize the solar power available in that given moment. With a storage tank, on the other hand, the solar water heater preheats the water and the tank maintains its temperature until the hot water is needed. A typical storage tank will hold enough heated water to provide for a single day’s supply.

There are both 1- and 2-tank solar hot water heater storage tanks, the first housing its own backup electric heating element to reheat cooled water on cloudy days and during the nighttime, the second feeding into a conventional electric or gas water heater.

If you’re considering installing a solar hot water heater of your own, you may be able to get a free energy audit to determine the potential cost savings you could reap. Whether you conduct one yourself or have it done for you, the energy audit must take certain factors into consideration, including:

1. The ease or difficulty you’ll have routing ducts or pipes from the ground floor or basement to the roof;

2. Whether sections of the wall will need to be opened up;

3. If there’s room on your ground floor or in your basement for a storage tank and how you’ll be able to load it in (ie the width of stairwells and doorways) and set it in place;

4. If your roof is accessible enough to install a panel on it and, if not, whether you have an appropriate site on the ground to put it;

5. How well and how sturdily you can fasten your collector’s supports to your roofing materials (for example, clay tile and slate can be more difficult to work with);

6. How well you’ll like the aesthetics of the system once it’s in place.
To achieve better results with your solar water heater:

7. Aim the solar hot water panel “true south” (as opposed to compass south);

8. Tilt it upward at a right angle to the sun;

9. Avoid shade (particularly between 9 am and 3 pm when the sun’s rays are usually hottest);

10. Always have a backup system in place for periods of excessive use and for off-peak solar accessibility hours.

A solar hot water panel installed properly should perform well for 15 to 20 years. And a solar water heater requires far less maintenance than its more conventional counterparts.

You might think that it would be extremely difficult to build a solar hot water heater, however it is not at all. All you need are the right instructions by your side and a little time and money. And by a little money, that is exactly what I mean. Many people are astonished by the small initial outlay that is required when you are prepared to build your own solar hot water heaters. In these times of increasing environmental pollution and rising energy bills, it makes more sense than ever before to become a part of the solution to the global energy crisis and take responsibility for at least a part of your energy needs.

Even for those people who are dedicated to building or buying a dedicated solar electricity system for their homes, constructing a solar heating system makes perfect sense as a first step. If you can heat your water with the power of the sun, you will have less need for a large and cumbersome electrical system and can get the size and scale of your photovoltaic panels right from the very beginning. There is a fantastic ratio of savings for the initial money spent on a solar heating system, and for only a few hundred dollars on materials and a little on professional instructions you can be enjoying the benefits of solar hot water heaters for years to come.

Source From: Solar Water Heater - How To Build Solar Water Heater

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How to Build Solar Battery Chargers

Solar battery chargers make good economic and environment sense. It just gets better when you realize that you don't have to use any mains electricity at all to recharge your batteries when you can simply use the power of the sun.

Things You Need:
1) AA Battery Holder
2) 9 V Battery Clip (This is to establish connection to your battery holder)
3) 8 x Solar Cells 0.5V, 20 to 50 mA in full sun
4) IN5818 Schottky Diode
This is a very simple circuit which doesn't provide any regulations. All you need to do is to disconnect your batteries when they are recharged.
The Schottky diode prevents the batteries' charge from flowing back through the solar cells when no charge is present. Schottky diodes have the advantage of not sapping too much of the power from our solar cells, maximizing the amount that is delivered to the batteries.
If you happen to live in a climate where the sun is a rare treat and it is often overcast, you might like to experiment with a couple of additional cells in series to increase the power produced.
The construction process isn't difficult at all. There are wide arrays of cases available that are suitable for housing such projects. If you can get housing with an integral battery holder, you find it will make neat work of housing the project.
House the cells in a way that they are shaded and well protected from the sun. Take note that If the cells get overheated, their electrolyte leaks. That will damage the cell and making a mess.

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Learn How To Build a Solar Water Heater

You can actually build your very own solar water heater for heating the water instead of using those geysers that consume electricity. That way, you will not only save over 30% of your electrical bills, you can also help to keep our environment clean and green!

So why not plan to save some money, contribute a pollutant free greener environment with a small investment that will cost less than $100. You can reduce the bill that comes due to the overall consumption of the home by using power extracted from free and renewable energy like the sunlight.

You may want to start by getting an installation kit recommended in GreenEarth4Energy.com. It has proven results in saving money for the common consumer, containing all the required instructions neatly written that will guide you step by step in building a DIY solar water heater. Your overall energy consumption will reduce by 30% after you have installed the DIY solar water heater. This benefits more if the size of the family is more and all of them are used to have the habit of bathing with warm water.

The DIY guide also provides you with informative suggestions on where to get all the required materials for building the DIY solar water heater instead of purchasing the commercial ones that cost more than $1000. The investment for a DIY solar water heater as suggested by the guide is one time but the returns will be coming soon. The maintenance for such systems is very less as one may need to change the solar panels only. There are no moving parts in the system that requires oiling or monthly maintenance.

It isn’t a difficult task and one can easily install a DIY solar water heater in less than a week. Make sure the solar panels receive lot of sunlight. It is not suited for areas that receive more rainfall or less sunshine throughout the year.

A DIY solar water heater is an easy do it yourself project for the average homeowner, and one that can be completed in just one weekend.

Experts agree that the DIY solar water heater built at a home is the best investment that one makes in an aim to get long term returns. Governments also offer tax rebates for those consumers who are planning to install the DIY solar water heaters at their homes. There, why not find out how quickly you can began to install the solar heater at home by visiting GreenEarth4Energy.com NOW!

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Living Off The Grid With Solar and Wind Power

Discover how you can start living off the grid and save a whole lot on electrical expenses, plus you get to help protect environment at the same time.

4 reasons why you should start living off the grid:

1. The shortage of power
2. The rapid consumption of non-renewable energy
3. The ever-increasing demand for power supply
4. The daily warnings about our environment

If I have startled you with that proposition, let me tell you that living off the grid not only helps the environment and helps save power; it also cuts down our electricity bill substantially. Now, that’s a tangible benefit apart from all the good you will do to the world. Trust me, you will feel good doing this.

The advantages of living off the grid:

• Reduced dependability on exhausting resources: Who wants to depend on public utilities all the time? Living off the grid helps you rely only on your resources and not the ones supplied by governments or corporations. How often have you cursed when faced with a power outage in the midst of some important work or a party? Wouldn’t you like to take charge of such factors affecting you life? With alternate power solutions, you can.

• Freedom of usage of naturally available resources: How would you feel when you don’t have to pay for the power you use? Wouldn’t it be delightful to use as much power as you want without worrying about the electricity meter? You can make use of the abundant power available in the nature to light up your home and make your food. The solar power solutions and the wind power solutions are the answers to your power quest (well, literally!).

• Reduced power costs, helping save your money: How would you feel if the electricity bills stop coming in your letter box? The alternate power solutions give you a return on investment very soon, thus making the power supply to your home eventually free!

• Making way for a healthier environment:

Don’t you bless the people who planted trees years ago not expecting them to miraculously grow? They planted those trees for the future generations. Make the future of your future generations secure by giving them a greener, healthier world. Cut down on the usage of non-renewable sources of energy. Try to use water minimally. There is not much drinking water left for the next generations.

If you are thinking it is not very feasible to live off the grid, look for alternate power solutions and you will be surprised to learn that they are not only cost-effective but also extremely feasible.

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