What is the establishment and maintenance cost?
If your handy, you can do it yourself and build a solar panel / wind mill for under 200 / 100 dollars, Its now affordable, will make to less dependable from the utility companies, safe for our environment, and save your money!
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We are building a home in the midwest and considering geothermal as a way to heat and cool the building. Geothermal requires some electricity. Solar panels could be the source of that electricity, but I haven't been able to find information of where that has been used or how it's done.
You'd set it up in much the same way that you'd set up a grid connected home, just that you'd have an inverter powering the set-up.
If you want to run on solar power you'll need some kind of backup for night, batteries work OK for small scales although you'll need to replace them every so often (especially if you act like you're still on a grid) although having a grid connection might not be such a bad idea to just run off the grid at night (probably cheaper too).
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The State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) of Texas has a useful calculator that can help you determine the costs and benefits of a solar energy system (link below). They've determined that: "Today, a reasonably priced PV system can supply a families' electricity if they use it efficiently, and if the electric grid isn't near, PV generated electricity may be the cheapest power source."
The Texas Solar Energy Society site has some good information. They're determination is that cost of energy generated from solar is still more expensive than buying "on the grid". (However, in 2006 the cost has risen to 14-16 cents/kWh in many cities.)
> "Compared to the current average price of electricity from a power plant (about 8 cents per kilowatt hour), PV electricity will cost you roughly twice as much, based on a 25 year lifetime.
The system will also appear expensive because you have to bear a large capital expense up front.
Generating enough electricity to power a home inherently takes a large collection area.
The most efficient way of utilizing PV, "grid attach", in which the electric utility buys back energy from you, and basically acts like a giant battery, is frequently discouraged by electric utilities (Austin is an exception). The fate of this "net metering" after deregulation is uncertain.
Batteries, used for energy storage, can be idiosyncratic and short lived, compared to the rest of the system.
As a way of displacing fossil fuel use (and pollution), it is less cost effective than basic conservation, passive solar techniques, and solar water heating. These should be considered first."
There are some Tax Credits:
The tax credits are for 30% of the cost of the system. For individuals the maximum credit is $2000 for photovoltaic systems and $2000 for solar water heating systems in any tax year.
Good luck! Sounds like an exciting project!
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Specifically, how much does it cost to purchase, install, and maintain a solar panel? How much of my energy can I tap out of it?
I live in Phoenix, Arizona. It supposedly rains four days a year here.
I'm in the middle of putting in solar/wind to offset the power needs of a 75 unit condo in St Thomas.
Cut to the chase. Solar systems, with batteries to store power for use at night and inverters to change battery power to 120v cost about $7 a watt installed
in Phoenix you'll get about 30 watts a square foot about 10 hours a day
a 1000W panel, at $7,000 installed will run 10 100 watt light bulbs or (maybe)) an energy efficient refrigerator.
do the math
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Include renewability and pollution in your discussion.
What a wonderfully worded question, a very postmodern interpretation of the original which a less imaginative person would have just copied verbatim. Fantastic use of punctuation and spelling just as their creators intended them to be used.
Fortunately this is quite a common question to be posed as part of elementary geography so I think I can deduce the exact question. In short a discussion would revolve around the following points.
Natural gas. Advantages: Less polluting (although still some) emissions when compared with other fossil fuels like coal and oil, easy to store and transport, cheap, efficient and readily available at present. Disadvantages: CO2 emissions that lead to global warming, limited supply a lot of which comes from unstable areas of the world and can be toxic and explosive if handled incorrectly.
Wood burning. Advantages: Effectively renewable although requires some effort to manage forest, readily available. Disadvantages: Not clean, sooty, less efficient than fossil fuels and harder to transport.
Solar energy. Advantages: Effectively free and renewable, very clean. Disadvantages: Sun not always shining especially in colder countries means that the energy captured must be stored somewhere and also requires expensive technologies which are currently not that efficient.
Hope that helps.
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Who to make small solar energy for home PC. please help me any one. thanx a lot.
It may happen but it is going to take a large panel, the hard drive has to be replaced with electronic memory, and it will have to run slow since it cannot use a cooling fan. The display would have to be extremely low energy usage.I think it is a few years off.
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I would love to use some solar energy in my home. What can you tell me about how much it costs to begin? Is there some sort of federal tax credit? What all do I need to buy (panels, batteries, etc)? Can a homeowner do the installation or must it be done by a professional? Would also appreciate any websites for retailers of solar energy items. Thank you very much for any information.
When I was gainfully employed, prior to experiencing the bliss of retirement, I worked for a hardware store that marketed a solar energy system for single family residences.
The cost profile (this stuff is expensive) suggested that, if you planned to live in your home for 19 years post-installation, you would amortize the cost.
There were federal and California state tax credits available at the time, as well as a rebate from Pacific Gas and Electric (primary utility provider in No. Calif.) which produced a net cost near $20K.
You need to determine if your local power company is obligated to buy back surplus power from your solar system first. If they are not legally required to do so, that will make amortization more difficult.
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It's a conspiracy, a conspiracy I tell ya. it seems that every one is just out to make money off from us.
And it used to be that you could direction off from the internet on how to build solar panels, solar water heaters, solar ovens, and stills to make Alcohol, and other things.
now everyone wants to make money off from you.
what ever happened people helping other people without expecting to get paid for it?
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I'm thinking of changing my home to solar energy. Does the State of Pennsylvania or the Federal goverment help with the cost.
some of those subcities are: Cheltenham, Upper Darby,Mt.Lebanon, Bethel Park,York…to name a few !!!!
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i'm from a six member family in greece and two years ago we bought one for 250 euros do ur own math
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