You live in a solar home. Really.

The sun has an effect on your home every day. Some people choose to fight that effect by installing air conditioning, but all that really means is that your home was designed to work against the sun, rather than with it.

When people hear the term “solar home”, they often think of a tree-hugger living in a remote area, perhaps with an old, black-painted water heater strapped to the roof and a collection of solar panels out in a field. You may be surprised to discover that small, simple changes could make your own home a solar home.

For instance, installing just one strategically-placed window can allow for heat generation on clear but cool days, or create a pass-through breeze from the other side of your house, and another open window. This creates instant, and free, air conditioning.

Change your landscaping to keep plants and trees on the north, west and east sides of your house. Leave the south side of your house clear for the sun. Insulate your walls, attic, and even under your house if you have a crawlspace. This will help maintain a moderate temperature in your home, reducing heating and cooling costs.

Install ceiling fans to create cooling airflow. Again, this will reduce both heating and cooling costs. Change out your incandescent light bulbs for fluorescent ones. They generate far less heat, require less electricity, and therefore cost you less.

Want more? Then move from passive solar techniques to more active ones. Installing a small photovoltaic (PV) system on or near your house can provide power for everything from a RV battery to your entire house. There are even garden fountains that run on solar, so you can have a beautiful garden area without running electrical wire out to that area.

You can purchase do-it-yourself solar hot water kits if you want to stretch your solar wings a little farther. Hot water is a primary energy drain for a typical home, so you’ll see immediate results after installing one of these kits. The basics include a solar collector, a pump and a heat exchange system, along with a water storage tank.

The cost of PV systems has dropped dramatically over the past couple of decades while the efficiencies of the systems has risen. That makes installing an active solar electric system a much better investment. Add to that the rebates, net metering, and tax credits that are available in many locations across the country, and you’ve got yourself a pretty good deal!

Small systems can be purchased and installed by a handy do-it-yourselfer who’s not afraid to read about the system, but a larger installation should probably be overseen by a qualified installer. And although there is some maintenance involved with a solar installation at your house, it’s very minimal, usually only requiring that you keep debris and snow off the PV panels.

Your household options for using the sun’s energy instead of fighting it are almost unlimited. Start small, and experience first-hand the benefits of solar power.

Solar power, (the harnessing and utilising of the rays provided for by the sun) is ecologically friendly, has huge cost saving implications (with no need to continually replace batteries and a totally free as well as 100% renewable power source) and is steadily beginning to become more and more prevalent in different types of consumer products.

One especially exciting application of this technology is in the pursuit of solar powered cars. The SP car has a series of panels on the outside of the car, allowing it to act like a plant by absorbing the sun™s rays and converting it into electrical energy which the car will run on as fuel.

Sadly, due to a number of limitations, solar powered cars are currently not available on the market for the average consumer, the current models of solar powered cars whilst ambitious in their goals, are dogged by a number of limitations that make them inappropriate and ill-suited for the demands of modern life.

In order to best achieve optimal performance, solar cars tend to be extremely lightweight, typically produced using specialised materials such as aluminium, if the solar powered cars were to be used and adapted for more mainstream consumer use, this careful balance would have to be majorly reviewed and altered which with current technology seems a rather unlikely event. All is not lost however, even though a full-scale solar powered car maybe beyond our means and current capabilities, the current technology presents opportunities for some technological advancement.

There is a great deal of excitement about the strengthening of the electric battery currently used in solar powered cars, and researchers are hoping to reach a happy medium of the average car, and this new electrical battery design. Currently, solar power technology maybe implemented in golf buggies, because they tend to be small, lightweight vehicles with low speeds and which spend most of their life out in the sun anyway, it seems a very attractive option.
Therefore, they enjoy a particularly strong presence in industry and engineering, and to date, all solar cars ever produced have been created to participate in government-sponsored races for totally solar powered and operated cars.

The very heart of the solar powered car is the electrical battery system, as it regulates and governs the power that enters and leaves the vehicle, in effect, the electrical battery system is the solar car equivalent of the petrol tank for a conventional car. Typically, Nickel-Cadmium, lead-acid and lithium ion batteries are all currently used in solar powered cars.

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You’ve made the decision to go with solar energy for your energy needs. In going solar, you need to know who is who. Let’s take a closer look.

Who is Who?

Companies in the solar energy industry come in two main forms. One set provides the systems you need to produce solar energy on your own. A much smaller subset will sell you a form of clean energy.

If you want to skip putting solar panels or shingles on your home, you need to find a company that will sell you power just like a utility. Unfortunately, there isn’t any nation wide company that solely provides solar electricity to customers. If you’re willing to look a bit broader, Green Mountain Energy Company may be for you.

Green Mountain Energy Company is a “cleaner electricity” company. It only buys power produced from wind, solar, biomass, water, geothermal and natural gas. The power is then fed into regional power grids and you tap it from there. The advantage of Green Mountain is you are using cleaner power than a typical utility company, but not completely clean as you find when generating solar power yourself. The biggest downside to Green Mountain is you are still paying utility bills, often more than you would pay to the utility company in your area. That being said, Green Mountain is really the only company of its type.

When people refer to providers, more often they are discussing manufacturers and installers of solar energy systems. In the case of solar energy, there are a few big industry leaders.

BP Solar is one of the largest producers for solar energy solutions for residential, commercial and industrial platforms throughout the world. The company is a true leader in the field and provides simplified solutions for homeowners by combining the sale of solar energy systems with full installation. A very popular company with many homeowners.

Somewhat surprisingly, General Electric is one of the biggest producers of solar energy solutions. The company offers high end commercial solutions and custom made solutions using crystallized silicon solutions. It also offers pre-packaged systems for residential homes.

On the other end of the scale, Uni-Solar is the creator the new solar roof shingles that are gaining popularity with consumers, businesses and government agencies. The shingles sit flat on homes like regular roof shingles, getting rid of the bulky solar panel appearance. The Uni-Solar product is considered a fairly major break through in solar power.

Solar companies come in all types and forms. You can visit our site in the byline of this article to find companies in your area that provide the particular solar solutions you need.

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