| Using Energy from the Sun |
| --Please Notice that the blue underlined portions of this page are web links-- --My Belief about Solar Energy I believe that I should use everything to my advantage to keep the world a better place for my children, my air clean, and my world a safe place. I also believe in saving money and making wise investments that pay off in the long run. That is why I am interested in solar energy- passive solar heating, active solar heating and electricity and anything else that I can benefit from. The sun is the origional source of all the energy we have on earth, other than geothermal energy, thus it saves time and resources to get our energy from the source. --Photovoltaic Cells -Electrical energy from the Sun I have found quite a few websites that sell solar cells. Solar cells are the small squares that make up solar panels. A few explanation of photovoltiac cell history and how they work can be found here and here. They can last a long while if they are protected from the elements properly. Here are a list of the relatively cheap sites I have found. -The Solar Cell Company sells the cheapest solar cells I have found in a kit here. -Silicon Solar is an okay company. They may not have the best prices, but they have a lot of selection. -Collector's Mart has relatively low cost solar cells, though I have never bought any myself. -Plastecs, my last solar cell site, has a pretty good efficiencies on some of its solar cells. --Photovoltaic Panels I have looked around for cheap solar panels for quite a while. I have found a number of websites that sell both multicrystaline and monocrystaline panels for a relatively good price. Here is the list of websites in no particular order: -AAA solar, The Solar Biz, BeyondOilSolar, WholesaleSolar, CarsonSolar.com, The Alternative Energy Store, North Arizona Wind & Sun, Abs Alaskan, Parts On Sale.com, Cheapest Solar, Advance Solar, SunElectric.com, SolarHardware.com, CI Solar, GotSolar, SolarSolar, ETA Engineering, Aristar Solar, and Discount Solar. --Solar Heating There are different types of solar heating that can be put into two catagories: mechanical (active), and non-mechanical (or passive). I really don't know much about the active solar heating arrays, but I am sure that some of the solar heating panels I see around town are active, and thus pump water or air through solar heating panels on the roof. I will give links on some of the passive solar websites I know about. --Passive Solar Passive Solar, for the most part, means using solar energy in a way that requires no mechanical devices to make heating or cooling work. Staying upstairs in the winter to warm up, and in the basement in the winter to cool down are ways we react to places where heat accumulates and dissipates. Passive solar usually has to do with how a house is built. Passive solar homes may have more windows facing south, more of the house partually or fully underground, and may be oriented in an East-West direction. Passive solar buildings keep a much more moderate temperature year round and save money. One really good website I found that has links to other pages are at the DOE, which has really good houseplans, including a really good book for South Carolina and NREL. The Airforce solar handbook and a Florida Website are here and here. And here are two angle calculators that could be used for overhangs here: 1,2. --Solar Updates Here The Solar Energy industry (especially photovoltaics) is changing all the time. Because of this fact, it is important to keep up on the latest solar cell and module efficiencies, as well as the latest prices. One place to get weekly news is from a website called Solarbuzz, and if you click here you can get a weekly e-mail from them about solar market news. The second place for great news and information is from Homepower magazine. You can go to their website and download their latest magazine free here, as well as check their downloads for other useful information. Mother Earth News also talks about using alternative energy. A few other alternative energy sources are: Energy Conservation News, and Renewable Energy Today. I also have a few articles that I kept from previous readings. This one is about FirstSolar. The next one is about Full-Spectrum Solar Cells. The full-spectrum solar cell idea is incredable to me. I would suggest anyone who is interested in this, make sure to e-mail the researchers at Berkley with your support. --Other Resources I suggest going to any of these institutions' websites for any help in the area of research and development in Alternative Energy, and Energy Efficiency development. I will Insert A picture here from SpireSolar.com |