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There are a
number of companies that offer small solar
systems. They usually offer system design help
to determine your solar power potential. As I
get the time, I'll list some of them on this
site. If you have recommendations I'd like to
hear them.
Solar power is
generally produced by solar cells. Solar cells
are a very expensive way to get electrical
power, though I admit a fairly reliable and low
maintenance one. If getting electricity using
solar cells please take special care to design
your electrical use to be as efficient as
possible, usually using it for lighting and
electronics.
Using
electricity from solar cells to heat anything is
a great waste of this precious form of energy.
There are many ways to heat home, food and water
directly from solar energy, much more
efficiently and cheaper than using electricity.
Actually if you put a cooling system on your
solar array, you can increase the power output
by putting reflectors on the array. Then the
heated water (from cooling the cells) can be
used to keep your home warm, provide
refrigeration, heat domestic water,
etc.
Solar array
tracking systems are worth looking into;
anything to increase the efficiency of these
expensive devices.
You are best
advised to store excess solar cell power in
batteries. Building an inexpensive battery bank
is easy for those people who take the time to
learn a little about ordinary vehicle batteries.
Many are thrown away that are not bad, or have
several perfectly good cells and only one bad
one (which can be bypassed). Getting the
'Capacitive Battery Charger' book will help you
find out about this bonanza of potential
electrical storage.
Please do not
consider storing any form of electrical power as
hydrogen (from an electrolyzer) unless you have
a specific use for the hydrogen. Those people
who want to use the hydrogen to power internal
combustion engines to regenerate the electricity
are wasting most of their original electricity
and are using a very dangerous way to do
it.
See 'Hydro' for
an explanation of 'Reverse your Electric Meter'
as a way to store excess power without having a
battery bank.
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