Posts Tagged ‘clean energy’
Benefits You Should Know About Solar Roof Panels
If you do not want to spend a lot of money building your own solar panels, after read this article, you will know how. But you need to be prepared to learn new things. To build the solar panels you can be helped by your friends and family, so all together can enjoy the construction. In addition, the use of solar panels can reduce drastically your energy bill cost and protect the environment.
The main benefits to build your own solar power panels are:
1.-Store the energy: You can store solar power for future use.
2.-Maintenance: The home solar power systems are easy to maintain. They do not involve high costs or too much effort.
3.- Cheap energy: The installation cost is a one-time cost. Later, the investment is recovered within a few months of installation. Once built, your solar power system can provide free energy to your house for years to come.
4.- Free: the monthly payment to the energy company will drecrease or disappear depending on the number of solar panels.
5.- Your home worth more: If some day, you want to sell your house, the price is higher because the solar system panels can provide free energy. Your potential buyers will know that.
6.- Green energy: The use of solar panels do not polute the air.
7.-Sell your energy: You can sell your excess generated electricity back to the utility companies. In many states, the energy companies will give you money if you can produce more energy than you consume. This is because your solar power system can be setup to return unused electricity to the grid for use by other consumers.
8.- Self-sufficient: You can avoid the increases of energy bill. In todays volatile economy, no one can predict the change in the price of fossil fuels. But, if you own enough solar panels, you can relax. Because you never will pay for using the sun.
Solar panels transform sun light into electricity. So, the best place to install the solar panels is the roof of your house. This is because you can use a place that never be used and always is receiving light. The panels must be accurately angled to face the suns direction, so the system will receive maximum exposure.
You have read some of the main benefits of solar panels. Many people are realizing that they can save hundreds from their energy bills. If you want to cut your monthly spend in energy and save the environment, then solar system panels can help you to achieve your objective.
Some companies sell DIY solar installation guides. These guides are implemented with videos and step by step process. Now it is very easy learn how to build a solar panel and reduce the cost more than five times a solar panel cost. The price of do it yourself guides is very affordable, only $50 and the materials cost dont exceed $200. It is a good chance to save money and the environment.
James Hughes has been working more than fifteen years in Green Energy field. Learn more with do it yourself guides. Also, you can find out all about solar panels.
How to Find Cheap Solar Cells with Minimal Effort
While theres much to be said for do-it-yourself energy projects, homemade solar cells are extremely time-consuming and take a lot of work.
If you are not planning to make your own cell then the alternatives left are ” either to find them (possible only if you have a friend at a solar company) or otherwise you will have to buy them.
There are a few methods how you can land up with acquiring solar cells. You can pick them up from a highway patrol (sometimes they might pick them up after a car accident), or else you can also get them at your local hardware store.
However, the easiest way to find solar cells at a reasonable price is to search for damaged solar cells online through eBay.
First, search using terms like broken solar cells or chipped solar cells to find open auctions where you are most likely to get a good price.
Next, look for less-damaged cells and those that are relatively the same in size. This will enable you to gather everything on one panel and choose how many you need to buy.
For slightly more money you can also search for transparent cells or newer cells by major companies, such as Evergreen Solar. This alternative will cost a bit more, but it will make it easier to determine how many cells youll need to use on a panel.
How much should you expect to pay?
The condition of the cheap solar cells is determined by how much you pay on eBay. You should have to pay only a few bucks or cents for a single cell, if you follow the way I mentioned above.
Even non-damaged and brand-new solar cells from Evergreen Solar should not cost much more than ten cents each.
In fact, the costliest aspect of buying your solar cells online will likely be the shipping expenses rather than the actual products. Depending on the location of the seller and the shipping method used, you may be faced with as much as $20 in shipping costs.
Solar panels wont totally eliminate your annual energy costs. But taking five minutes to buy discounted solar cells online through eBay is certainly time well-spent. Remember, as little as thirty dollars can buy you several hundred solar cells off of eBay and translate into thousands of dollars in savings on your electric bill this year.
Basics of DIY Wind Turbine Construction
You’ve managed to gather all the parts you will be utilizing for your wind turbine, you have also estimated your wind turbine expenditure, and you are now fully determined to construct your own windmill. How do you assemble all the items you have gathered?
Here’s how you do it in 9 easy steps:
Phase 1: Procure or buy all the components on eBay or from any nearby hardware shop ” DC power motor, metal sheets, PVC pipe, hub, tower, deep-cycle battery, charge controller, dump load, AC inverter, and sufficient nuts and bolts to connect three blades to your tower.
Phase 2: To start with, cut the PVC pipe into a 3 ft long piece, and then cut the pipe into four pieces ” 3 will be used for blades, and one shall be a spare. You will have to shape each blade so that one side tapers into a 2 point. The blades should of approximately 6 ft long ” they could be smaller, but surely not smaller than 4 ft in which case they may not spin easily.
Part 3: Now, make holes on the narrow end of your blades so that their positions align with the holes in your hub.
Phase 4: Now, attach a coupling to the middle of your hub and join the 3 blades to this hub, attaching the hub itself to the motor shaft – you should be able to do this with 12″ by 2″ steel bars.
Stage 5: Adjust the blades and the hub neatly by marking each blade with a number and test spinning them to ensure that the same blade does not position itself at the base every time ” if so, then you may have to scrape some metal off your connecting steel bars.
Phase 6: Smoothly slide the DC motor shaft into the hole in the middle of your hub (or drill one if it’s not there already). Make sure the hub is securely fastened.
Part 7: Now, look at your tail shaft to figure out the height and make a hole through the top part of the tower, above where the tail shaft’s upper end will go.
Phase 8: Then, chop the actual tail shaft from your metal which should be approximately 3-4 ft long and attach it to the tower with a flat bracket.
Part 9: Now, connect your DC motor to the charge controller, connect the charge controller to the battery, connect the battery to the AC inverter, and then connect that to your utility box. The type of wire you need to use depends on the materials you’ve used – ask your electrician for help if all else fails.
This is just a simple introduction to DIY wind turbines, but with just these instructions you should be able to start making your own.
The wind turbine described above should generate 300-500 watts of power, assuming that your mean wind velocity is a minimum of 10-20 mph.