Solar power?

[gimmethesimplelife]

Just curious, is anyone here on solar power? I am thinking of buying a small solar power set up to power my computer and a few lights when I return to Phoenix, so that I can slowly learn about it.....Very much I like the idea of some independence that solar power offers and since I am in Arizona, it's almost like why have I not explored this sooner? Just curious as to other posters experiences with solar. Rob

[Gardenarian]

I am not. We would like to have it, but we had the people from Real Goods solar come out and take a look at our house and they said that it would not be worth it with our site location. Oh well. For us, energy conservation is our best bet (and as we live in a very mild climate, we use comparatively little power anyhow.)

I'm glad we had someone trustworthy do the site evaluation; I'm hearing some real slick solar salespeople on the radio lately. You really need to factor in the energy that goes into making the panels, how long they will last, how much energy output you will get, etc. to see if there will be a net carbon savings (never mind $$ - not many solar projects provide much financial gain.)

There are a lot of great books at our library on solar power - I would definitely start there.

[loosechickens]

I am coming to you at this moment over a satellite internet connection powered by solar photovoltaic panels. As you know, we live in a motorhome, and use solar panels on the roof for all our electricity (when we are where we have hookups, we use shore power for a/c and refrigerator.....when away from hookups, we run the fridge/freezer on propane and just don't use the a/c).

That's a good idea Rob....we have friends in Scottsdale who have several solar panels, an inverter, batteries etc. from an RV, and wired several areas of their house to get the power from the solar panels instead, of the electric company. They run their tv, computer, stereo, lights in several rooms, etc. on that system, and have the advantage of having some power in the house in case of outages, as the inverter is even big enough for them to move their microwave in the living room and use it to cook or heat food during an outage, since they have an electric stove. They get the good feeling of some degree of energy independence without a whole lot of expense, and increase their ability to be self sufficient if storms or other emergencies cause their electric power from the grid to go out.

[rodeosweetheart]

LC, do you know of a book or article that shows you how to set up this kind of back up system at this level? I would love to work into this, too.

[kentvogel]

Solar power is the conversion of sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV), or indirectly using concentrated solar power (CSP). Concentrated solar power systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam.

[ljevtich]

Yup, like LC, we use solar power when boon docking (not plugged in), and it works great. The link below was where we got our Solar Panels, but they have lots of information and help to understand how it all works.

When we were in Sedona, AZ, we saw so many homes with solar panels, and the Grand Canyon even uses solar panels for the visitor center. I am sure there are tons of places that you can go to get this set up.

http://www.amsolar.com/home/amr/page_98