Facts About Solar Energy

When sunlight strikes a solar cell in a solar panel it is converted into electrical power. Currently, the best commercial solar panels convert about 14% to 16 % of the light that strikes them into energy. It is estimated that there is about 1000 watts of light power per Square Meter. A meter is 39 inches, so its 10.5 square feet.

This means that that you can expect to extract a maximum of 160 watts per hour per square meter of solar cells.

So 10 square meters (150 Square feet)will produce about 1600 watts per hour. Or 1.6 thousand watts (KW) per hour.

In practice it takes about 100 square feet to generate 1 KW of power per hour.

An average non energy efficient family home uses about 33 KW hours per day or 1000 KW hours per month.

There are between 5 to 7 sun hours per day in North America. That means you are only producing maximum output for 5 to 7 hours per day.

To Figure out how many square feet you need to producce 33 kw hours you divide you daily use by the number of sun hours.

33/5.5 = 6 kw per hour.

This means you need 6 x 100 = 600 Square feet.

So you need about 600 Square feet of Solar Panels to generate all you daily power requirements for an average family home.

Guess what, the price you pay for electricity each year is probably going to go up. In the USA and every where else in the world it is the same. There are three ways electricity gets produced.

Nuclear, Fossil Fuels (Oil,Gas & Coal) and Hydro Electric (using Water in Dams).

Think about each of these. There is only one way. And thats up. If the price of electricity goes up by 5% a year. Then after 14 year it will cost twice as much.

If it goes up by 6.7 per year, which it has done in California for the last 30 years, the cost of electricity will double in just under 11 years.

Is nuclear power going to get more expensive or less expensive? The cost of uranium ore has tripled in the last 5 years. The cost of storing nuclear waste for 1000 years is going to be billions. All of which gets passed on to you.

For coal, oil and Gas. We should not be burning these should we. They increase green house gases. (There are technologies on the drawing board that will capture green house gases. But it going to increase the price.)

You can bet there is going to be a carbon trading scheme in the next few years. This means companies that generate lots of greenhouse gases using coal are going to pay for extra carbon credits. The cost of this will be passed on to you.

For Hydro Electric power, our water supplies have never been more precious. We will need to water to drink and for industry

The good news is that today for every KW of energy you produce, your utility company will deduct that usage from your power bill. This is called net metering.

If you produce all the energy you need, you save all the money that you were going to pay the Power Company.

Now here is whats really interesting. If you are on Time of Use contracts, then,on hot summer afternoons you will be getting a net-metering credit of about 20c per kw hour in summer.

Often power companies are paying much more than that because they a buying power on the spot market to cover peak demand.

In fact some power companies will pay real money for the power you produce. This is called feed-in tariffs. Ask your power company if they have a feed-in tariff program.

Feed-in tariffs were introduced in Germany in 2003 and the installations of Solar Power stations went ballistic. They installed more than 250 MW of small scale solar power stations in three years.Interestingly the German feed-in tariff is not government funded but they pay about 50c per KWH

If you live in California, in 11 years or less you will be getting paid double for the energy you produce, because the cost of electricity has gone up 6.7% a year since 1970.

In 11 years time, your are still producing that power for what it cost you when installed your power station, because you have virtually no running costs.

Your power station will last at least 25 year and probably up to 35 or even 40 years. So you will get at least 25 years of savings, may be more.

So what is the cost of Solar Energy lets take a typical example.

Please Note: These figures are indicative of the types of installations that can be done and are not claimed to be accurate.

Rebates and costs and solar outputs change from state to State.

For an average family home, the stats are:

KW Hours Per Year 12,000
KW Hours per month 1,000
KW Hours per day 33.
Power station Kw Required 6 KW per hour.
Cost per KW installed $5,500
Cost of Solar Power Station $33,000
Solar Energy Grants $15,000
Net Cost 18,000.00

You borrow $18,000 at an average interest rate of 6.00%

Repayment per Month 107.92

Ave Cost Per KW Hour 0.11
Yearly Price Increase 6.00%
Inflation Rate 3.00%

In the First Year your new power station is saving you $110 a month in electricity.

1000 KW hours * 11c = $110

You are paying 107.92 in interest.

So your 1000 kw hours actually costing 2.08 less a month

By year 10 you are saving $77 a month or $935 a year

Over the 30 life years you actually save $65,000 in power bills or $34,000 in todays money from your power station on top of paying back the $18,000 plus the interest it cost you.

In other states rebates are not as large but is possible to make savings in less than 2 to 5 years.

Imagine many of our larger cities with more than 2 million people. Say there is 1 roof top for every 4 people. So thats about 500,000 roof tops.

If just 1 in 5 homes has a roof top solar power station with a 6 kw system like I describe above it would produce 500 mega (million) watts (MW) of power per hour on peak hot sunny days.

Thats a lot of power by any ones standards.

Thats 100,000 homes producing 5 kw of (AC) power per hour.

Thats 500 mw that was created out of thin air! It was not there before but now it is.

Even if only 1 in 10 roof tops had a solar power station thats still 250 MW of power the power grid call on a hot sunny day.

It saves tens of thousands of tons of green house gases every year for 30 years.

I hope I have explained how a properly sized and installed solar energy system can save you money and allow you to generate energy for your family without creating greenhouse gases, for many years. You can save a bunch as well

There are a number of things you can do right now to make a difference.

Find out more. Renewable Energy Solutions tells you all you need to know about sizing and installing a solar power system. You can use it as a do it yourself guide or for great reference and information. Remember some government grants may not apply if you do not get a professional installer. If you were ever curious about wind, biodiesel it covers them as well.

If you need a quote for a grid tie net metering system then Affordable Solar will be happy to talk to you. You can start small with modular residential grid tie or go for full power replacement like the one above.

If you want to know how to finance your solar power system

IF you want know the six steps to install home solar power.