Number of people installing solar panels at their homes is increasing everyday. There are many factors fueling this hot trend. Increasing price of oil and electricity are among them. Decrease in cost of solar panels and subsequent decline in per watt rate of electricity produced by them has encouraged small scale solar energy generation.

Cost is no more a Factor

Gone are those times when people who cared about environment were unable to switch to solar because the cost of solar panels. But these days, this excuse is no more. Everyone can now afford solar energy system for their home provided they get enough sunshine during the day. Cost is no more a factor.

3 Problems to Solve before you Install Solar Panels

Thanks to DIY Solar Kits, Installing solar panels is a no brainer. Still, little planning would not do any harm. If you got to do it, do it professionally. A typical plan to fit solar panels at your home should take care of following problems.

1. Selecting a suitable place to install solar panels.
2. Buying Solar panels that are right for your needs.
3. Hiring an electrician to do the wiring.

Let’s discuss these problems and try to solve them one by one

Where to Install Solar panels

Where you will install your solar panels will depend largely upon location of your home. Mostly it should be the sunniest unused place in your house. your roof.

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Installation of solar panels at home assists you in two ways; one is that you get cheapest energy for your home and second it increases your home value. Modern solar systems are more accurate, efficient and easy to install. Though initially installation of solar panels cost you much, but on long term you really know that your investment won’t go in vain. When the solar panel will be installed, the costs depreciate over time. The system itself adds value to your home. Overall, you get inner satisfaction that you are using clean and non-polluting systems.

Six Things That Makes Solar Energy a Better Choice:

1. Unlike other energy sources like oil, coal, or natural gas, solar energy is a free source.
2. If you sell back the extra electricity to the electric company made by your solar panel, you can have no electric company bill. Read the full story

The greenhouse effect is a natural process by which the earth keeps itself warm enough for the living organisms to survive. However, due to the human intervention, the level of these greenhouse gases has increased to such an extent that the greenhouse effect is become hazardous for human life.

Greenhouse gases are heat trapping gases formed on earth through natural processes and human activities, which then enter the atmosphere. Here are some of the major gases responsible for the greenhouse effect.

1. Carbon dioxide (CO2)

Carbon dioxide is being emitted in the air constantly as every time you breathe, a tiny amount of CO2 enters the atmosphere. However, this is an extremely small amount as compared to the CO2 produced when wood and fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas, and coal are burnt. Many other industries also produce CO2 as a by product. Although plants get rid of the CO2 present in the air during photosynthesis. With the increase in the fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, atmospheric CO2 has increased greatly. Carbon dioxide is accountable for most of the global warming, and with the ongoing rate, atmospheric CO2 level can almost double as soon as in 2050.

Our Earth receives 174 petawatts (PW) of solar radiations at the upper atmosphere, out of which almost 30% is reflected back to space whereas the rest is absorbed by clouds, oceans and land masses.

The Earth’s land surface, oceans and atmosphere that absorb solar radiation, raises their temperature. This causes warm air that contains evaporated water from the oceans to rise, causing atmospheric circulation or convection.

The water cycle gets completed when the air reaches a high altitude, where low temperature prevails, and the water vapor condenses into clouds, which rain onto the Earth’s surface.

There are many causes that lead to Global warming, with each of the reasons contributing more to the increasing intensity of the climate change that has affected our planet.

The main cause of global warming is the increase rate of greenhouse gases present in the earth’s atmosphere. These gases cause the the greenhouse effect, which traps the heat present on the earth by reducing the level of solar rays that are able to escape from our atmosphere.

Although the greenhouse effect is extremely important to support life on earth, by keeping our atmosphere warm enough to support life, the addition of human activities contributing to the quantity of greenhouse gases has caused an artificial increase in the intensity of the greenhouse effect, which has made this great phenomena a bad effect. Thus greenhouse effect is not bad, it is the increase in the amount of greenhouse gases that are causing the harm.

Solar energy is extremely important for us to survive. Besides helping us to stay warm, and enabling other organisms to survive, it is used in the commercial power production as well.

Solar energy is also essential for plant life as it is necessary for photosynthesis, the process through which plants generate energy and process nutrients for their growth by converting solar light for their own use by utilizing chloroplasts within their leaves and bodies.

Through this process, food is produced for other herbivores together with oxygen for us to breath and removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, allowing creatures such as ourselves to survive while maintaining a balanced world temperature.

Solar energy is a reliable and never ending source of energy. Although the initial cost of using the solar energy may be high, the high price can be recovered as after the system is installed, there will be no cost of producing the electricity.

Advantages of Solar Energy

• Solar cells are long lasting sources of energy which can be used almost anywhere.
• They are particularly useful in areas where there is no national grid and in areas where there is less population, such as in a remote site.
• Solar cells provide cost effective solutions to energy issues in places where there is no mains electricity.

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An international group of scientists have revealed that the annual rate of increase in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels has more than tripled in this decade, as compared to the 1990s.

Furthermore, they have claimed that the Earth’s future is quite dark unless the CO₂ emissions are reduced considerably.

The Global Carbon Project report stated that the CO₂ emissions have risen at a rate of 3.4% per year from 2000 to 2008, in comparison to 1% that occurred each year in the previous decade.

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Natural gas is mostly promoted as part of the solution to climate change by the gas industry. Although it is non-renewable, it is a plentiful energy source. However, according to some experts, its contribution to global warming is only slightly less than that of coal and oil.

The main component of natural gas is methane which is a fossil fuel just like crude and coal. When methane is burned, it produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. These are called greenhouse gases because they trap the heat of the sun’s rays in the atmosphere, warming the earth’s surface. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas.

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We use energy in different forms in our daily lives and the energy used is renewed or restored for continued utility. But some of the forms of energy cannot be renewed like fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are very precious to us, and we should try to conserve it as fossil fuels are so type that once finished cannot be created and conserved. Fossil fuels are were created after a long time, and its usage has been important for our use. But we need to save the energy by using alternatives and other manners to save the precious fossil fuels. For example we save electricity by turning off lights and appliances at homes when not in use. The building of insulators at homes save electricity that is used to warm homes and buildings. In the picture on the left, the Aerogel treats as insulator, the finger cannot feel the heat of flame. This material is used to save homes and places from heat and external warmth.

One way of saving energy is recycling. It is the simplest method to save energy. Recycling of used products are helpful, and they take less time and effort to make new things than to create it from new raw material. recycling than should be processed as much as possible. Recycling helps from using new products to be used frequently also that recycling can be processed as much as possible, it is not expensive and can save money too.

Energy saving is possible even in cars and other vehicles. by cleaning up the filters and oil places the car consumes less gasoline. Overloading a car with more fuel can also damage its efficiency. Saving lights and electricity in schools can also help more in conserving the energy. even in classrooms and breaks, the lights turned off saves a lot of electricity.

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One of the most interesting talks at AAAS is about a discovery that may ultimately give the much-vaunted hydrogen economy an opportunity. Daniel Nocera, Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry at MIT delivered a plenary lecture on a new catalyst produced in his research lab, one that gets inspiration from the photosynthetic pathways inside plant cells to break up body of water into H2 and O2, giving up the H2 to be utilized as fuel.

Fulfilling the human’s future energy need is going to require the sun, said by Nocera, and that is only going to occur if we can stock that energy for utilization when it is not beaming. Plants developed to take advantage of high-power chemical bonds, and the oil, gas, and coal we presently utilize is just stored sunlight (thru plants), even though concentrated. Hydrogen is the single practicable solution compared to batteries, capacitors, or mechanical storage systems like pumped-up water or compressed air when you consider energy density and the work from his research laboratory may help do that possible.

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