Solar Electric Power Generation

by admin on July 20, 2011

Back in the beginning of the 20th century, the US government announced tax credits, subsidies, incentives, you name it, to shore up a young and struggling oil industry that really didn’t have a grip on the market at the time the way coal and wood did.

Nuclear power never did actually take off as people expected; but solar electric power certainly seems to hold all the promise today.  Curiously, solar electric power is beginning to take the place of the new magic bullet energy source of the world that petroleum was more than a century ago.And the government is beginning to align itself behind it.

In California for instance, the government has incentives and subsidies in place that let private enterprise build solar installations on school grounds across the state and sell low-cost power to the schools.

Everyone hopes that these incentives will help solar electric power become established as the go-to energy source, and that it will transform the country and also the world the way petroleum did all those decades ago.

In the beginning, photovoltaic technology was only ever used in places so far off, no regular grid power could be brought in. Things only began to really look up for the technology about five years ago so when the Energy Policy Act stepped in to hand out generous tax credits to anyone who was willing to invest in a solar project.

Every solar electric power project in the country that receives subsidies supplies power back to the grid when the installation becomes operational and doesn’t need all that’s being produced locally.

When the tax incentive system was expected to end a couple of years ago, new solar electric power installations abruptly ended too. Now that the system is back on, solar energy seems poised to get back on track.

A megawatt of power produced can help about 200 homes get powered up. And each year in this country, there are about 500 of those megawatts coming online with solar cells doing the heavy lifting.

That’s a lot of homes.
There are so many incentives waiting in the wings for businesses that deal in solar electric power  installation, construction or maintenance that they are thousands of businesses coming online each year trying to take advantage of these.

Most of these are tiny businesses with just a handful of employees.Not only do the businesses have incentives to motivate them, they also have the fact that prices fall by a fifth each year.

They benefit at both ends, and it really makes it worth their while. When you look at the long-term costs of dealing with smoky fossil fuels, there’s just no comparing these two at all.

 Mail this post

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Wind Power for Homes

by admin on July 20, 2011

When you see windmills what comes to your mind? Do you think of the Dutch countryside scattered with these structures? Do you think of the windmill-fighting Don Quixote, the fictional Spanish nobleman?

Whatever comes to your mind, one thing is true; wind solar power is now a reality in many places. After decades of neglect, windmills are being adapted and changed in design to allow them to produce the needed energy that is so vital for life in the 21st century.

Although used to turn a grinding stone that would be used to obtain flour for bread, wind mills are being for a completely different purpose today – to produce electricity through wind power.

In California, there are more than 16,000 wind turbines that are run by windmills with huge rotor blades.

The exploration of wind power is not a new concept. Early, humans have always sailed the oceans even before the advent of the engines. Ships are driven by wind and for centuries, humans have used wind power to pump water and saw wood.

Today, they are still used to pump water where power outages occur. In the 20th century the ease with which fossil fuels could be harnessed and the resultant greater power from these resources pushed wind power to the back seat.

In the years following the use of fossil fuels, it seemed that this form of fuel was cheap ad plentiful and thus easily eclipsed wind solar power. However, the 173 oil crisis changed the viewpoint of many and since then, wind solar power again came to light and has done that ever since.

From an environmental point of view, wind solar power clearly stands out and has taken on a new appeal. Wind and sunlight being inexhaustible were thus seen as the best alternative.

In addition, they are also much easier on the environment and do not produce fearful weather and climate phenomenon as is seen with fossil explorations.

Wind energy produces no chemical emissions whatsoever making it one of the most user-friendly alternative energy resources out there. So how much energy can a wind turbine produce? Wind energy varies as a cube of the wind speed.

This means that when the speed of the wind doubles, the power provided is 8 times more. You can therefore see why a small increase in wind power can result in a massive boost of energy output.

This is called the Cube law. To take advantage of the law, wind turbines are placed on hilltops where wind accelerates as it passes. Wind is just one of the many alternative energy sources that may preserve our environment from the effects of fossil fuels.

 

 Mail this post

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Benefits of Solar Energy and things you didn’t know..

July 20, 2011

Solar energy, let alone its benefits, is very grey area for many people and hence the end result is people missing out on the many advantages of solar energy. One advantage of solar energy is that it helps to reduce pollution. This is great news to everyone especially environmentalists who have been fighting tooth and [...]

 Mail this post

Read the full article →

Efficient Appliances Which Are Solar Powered

July 19, 2011

Solar power is the latest in saving the planet and conserving our energy. Solar power is energy produced from the sun and has great results when you use both energy and conservation. With solar power becoming more popular there is also the need for solar power products. People are now building solar power houses to live in more efficiently. They also want appliances, lighting, heating, water pumps and water heaters to be solar power efficient as well. That is why we now have a way of purchasing solar power appliances to use in the kitchen. Appliances are usually the most costly appliance in a home as they usually run almost continuously and get used often.

 Mail this post

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries