My Experiments With Solar Power

Some years ago when I retired and shifted to a small cottage in the country I was looking for something to occupy my time and stumbled upon solar home energy systems.

I am an accountant with no technical knowledge of any kind, but the idea of reducing my dependence of commercially generated electricity and doing my bit towards making the world a greener place appealed to me.

I started reading up on solar energy in general and solar home energy systems in particular.

To be honest, when I started I was looking at the whole thing as more of a hobby rather than something of serious practical value.

It did prove to be an interesting pastime and I learned a lot not just about solar power but also about how important it is to harness it and reduce our dependence to the rapidly diminishing reserves of fossil fuel we are quickly running through.

I began by installing a solar water heating system in my home.

This was a fairly simple job which even a layman like me could understand. Solar panels placed on the roof absorbed the heat from the sunlight and used it to heat water in a nearby tank.

This hot water was then transferred to an insulated storage tank where it remains hot, and can be used as and when needed.

It works well and except then it is very cloudy, I do not need to use any other method of water heating. The success of the solar water heater drove me to look at the next stage in home solar energy systems generating electricity.

This was much more complicated and involved the use of solar photo voltaic panels that convert sunlight into electricity which can either be used directly or stored in batteries for later use.

This system also works, but let me admit that the results are not as great as with the water heating process. The problem lies in the relative inefficiency of the photo voltaic panels that convert the sunlight into electricity.

The more panels that are exposed to sunlight, the more electricity produced. But since the panels are quite big and I have limited area to place them without ruining the looks of my home, the amount of electricity generated is not enough to make me energy independent.

I still have to draw electricity from the grid to keep my house running.

But the electricity produced by the solar home energy system has brought down my electricity bills appreciably.

Of course the capital cost of the equipment for the solar home energy system was quite high and it will take me some years to recover my investment.

After that its all savings. I keep reading about new advances in solar energy and solar home energy systems.

Things like thin film solar panels promise to revolutionize the efficiency of solar energy systems. So I do look forward to the day when my solar home energy systems will make me completely independent of commercially bought electricity.