Home Solar Panel DIY
Making a home Solar Panel is not hard! Click Here For Videos and More Information! Although the manufacture of solar panels is done in a strict quality controlled environment, for personal purposes you can build your own home solar panel to see how the sun’s energy can be converted to electricity. While most commercial panels are actually made with silicon, you can build your own home solar panel by using cuprous oxide - copper- which causes light to be turned into electricity. Using a thin sheet of copper, you can get your cuprous oxide. Here's how:.
Click Here For Solar Panel Videos and More Information on home Solar Panel building!
Here's the list of what you need to make your own home solar panel: one square foot of thin copper plate, two alligator clips and short leads of wire, a wide mouth glass jar, tap water and salt. By using a voltmeter, capable of measuring extremely small amounts of electricity, you can see the end result. The copper sheeting needs to be heated on an electric stove or hot plate, to build your own solar panel. It's as simple as putting the copper sheet on a burner. Turn it on high and let it heat up there for about 30 minutes. As the plate heats up, you will see it turning colors, because the heat shows the outline of the heating coil underneath. As it gets hotter it will start to turn a dark color until the whole sheet has a very dark, even black coating.
When the entire sheet is black, turn off the burner and let it sit to cool for about 20 minutes. The now black cuprous oxide cools, and the black coating will start to pop off the sheet, leaving a thin coating of red on the copper. To build your home solar panel the red coating is what is needed. Most of the black can be rinsed off under running water, but it should not be brushed clean.
Salt Water actually Helps Produce The Electricity for your home solar panel. By using the alligator clips, connect the copper sheet to one the top of one side of the glass jar. Attach the other clean copper sheet to the other side of the jar. Mix 2 tablespoons salt into hot water, make sure it dissolves then pour it into jar. It's really important that the water does not get on the alligator clips. The two copper sheets should be under water with about one inch left exposed at the top of the car to build your own solar panel.
Hey, now you are getting closer to your home solar panel. Carefully place the entire contraption in the sunlight, either in front of a window or carry it outside and expose it to the sun. If you were able to build your home solar panel, you can see the meter indicate the power being generated by sunlight. Using the voltmeter connect the leads to the two alligator clips. Enjoy the sun's energy from your own home solar panel! You can feel glad!!! Click Here For Solar Panel Videos and More Information
Explaining Geothermal Energy
Using the natural heat from the earth, geothermal energy is fast becoming an important source of renewable energy. It has already been used to provide power to 1.2 million homes in the United States. It has far greater potential and to both heat and provide electricity to homes and is yet to be properly utilized. That's about to change.
Geothermal energy comes from a variety of heat sources within the earth: decay of naturally occurring substances within the crust, the planet core and movement of continental plates as they slide against and underneath each other. Volcanoes, hot springs and steam vents represent the easily accessible points to this energy but most geothermal energy is trapped under the earth’s crust and must be accessed by drilling into the resource and harnessing the energy. The thermal energy in the uppermost 6 miles of the earth’s crust contains 50,000 times the energy of all the world’s gas and oil resources.
What Is Geothermal Energy?
Geothermal energy is the heat stored under the earth’s surface. In some parts of the world where the earth’s surface is cracked or thin, molten rock and steam can escape. These are usually locations of high seismic activity such as earthquakes and volcanoes. If water finds its way into these cracks, it becomes heated and may come to the surface as geysers, fumaroles, hot springs and mud pots.
Parts of New Zealand, Japan, USA and Europe have high geothermal activity. Electricity is generated using high grade geothermal energy such as geysers, mud pots, hot dry rocks and fumaroles. Geothermal energy can also be used as a heating source, for example in Iceland hot water is brought to the surface through a bore , then sent through insulated pipes into homes and radiator panels which provide heat. Over 80% of homes in Iceland are heated this way.
Although geothermal energy doesn’t pollute the air with greenhouse gases, there are other environmental concerns about its use. Scientists are not sure how the long-term use of this resource could affect our underground water supplies. Some geothermal tourist attractions at Rotorua in New Zealand have already suffered a decline in surface activity due to the draw-off of geothermal fluid from the underground reservoir by domestic and commercial uses.
Geothermal energy can be broken down into 4 main types – Geothermal energy can be broken down into 4 main types – magma, hot dry rock, hydrothermal and geopressured.
Hydrothermal
Hydrothermal is the only source used to generate commercially viable energy and is derived from hot water and steam formed in porous or fractured rock at relatively moderate depths from 100 metres to 5 kilometres.
The steam and hot water come from the intrusion of molten magma into the earth’s crust or the deep circulation and heating of groundwater through faults and fractures.
Electricity is created by bringing hot water to the surface where it is flashed to steam in special vessels by release of pressure. The steam is then used by being directed into a turbine engine which turns a generator. Ensuring the water levels are not depleted, the used geothermal water is returned to the reservoir.
Geopressured
Geopressured energy comes from hot, pressurised waters containing dissolved methane, trapped at depths of three to six kilometres in sedimentary formations. The water temperature ranges from 90°C to 200°C.
Three forms of energy can be derived from geopressured sources – chemical energy from burning the dissolved methane, hydraulic energy from the high pressure, and thermal energy from the hot water.
Hot Dry Rock
Under certain conditions granite at a depth of 3 to 5 kilometers below the ground can get to 250°C. Unlike hydrothermal resources, it is necessary to drill bore holes to get to the hot rock formations and then water must be pumped into the rock at high pressure to create an artificial underground reservoir of steam or hot water.
A number of development projects continue into attempting to make use of hot dry rock to create electricity but factors such as cost and questions about resistance of the reservoir to flow, water loss and thermal drawdown remain. Costs are coming down though and geothermal technology in general will improve enough to make hot dry rock economically feasible.
Magma
There is still no practical way of extracting the energy potential from magma. Found at depths from between 3 and 10 kilometers under the earth's surface, magma is molten rock reaching temperatures up to 1200°C. Magma is only accessible where volcanic activity or tectonic plate movement occurs.
The Future Prospect of Geothermal Energy in the US
An exciting new development in the future of geothermal energy in the United States has just been announced by the Department of the Interior who have promised to make 190 million acres of federal land available for geothermal power development. This is good news because the proposed land includes no environmentally sensitive areas such as national parks or designated wilderness areas.
An estimation of something like 5,500 MW of electricity from geothermal power will be generated by 2015. It’s a positive move that will promote a form of renewable energy that has been used for years, but perhaps not to its full potential.
Solar Energy Moves Forward With CSP Plants
There are two main types of solar power generation methods used to produce electricity on a commercial scale. Photovoltaic panels, which are the large collections of the systems that you see in small scale on house roofs. Concentrating solar power (CSP) uses thermal solar power, the heat of the sun, to produce environmentally friendly energy.
It’s the way in which concentrating solar power plants produce electricity that we will concentrate on here. CSP plants are capable of producing electricity at a higher maximum capacity than a photovoltaic facility of the same size. As renewable energy continues to be advanced, we will see more concentrating solar power plants get developed.
The four main comercially productive concentrating solar power systems are: parabolic troughs, dish / engine systems, fresnel reflectors and central receiver systems. The technology involved with each is proven and either has been or still is in operation around the world with further concentrating solar power plants in progress to increase global capacity.
Parabolic troughs use mirrors to direct sunlight onto a fluid-filled receiver positioned in directly in front of each trough. The fluids are heated to very high temperatures so that super-charged steam is produced. A conventional steam generator is then used to produce electricity.
A trough-based CSP plant typically consists of rows of mirrored troughs placed parallel to each other along a north-south axis in what is known as a collector field. Optimum heat exposure is maintained thanks to the pivoting nature of the parabolic troughs which track the sun's movement across the sky. Thermal storage is also used to allow electricity generation to continue even when the sun is not available. Technological advancements are continuing to prolong this production period in a bid to move to continuous solar electricity production.
Power plants known as Andasol 1, Andasol 2 and Andasol 3 in Spain all use the parabolic trough design, forming a combined 150MW solar power plant. The surface area of the mirrors used to form the energy collection field of Andasol 3 alone is around 500,000m2.
Fresnel relectors are similar to parabolic troughs except they are flat mirrors that focus light onto one receiver. This is a simpler system to the parabolic trough system with fewer moving parts and the rows can be positioned closer together. The receiver is stationary and it is shared by multiple mirrors.
An example of a recently commissioned CSP plant using reflector technology is the Kimberlina CSP plant in California developed by Ausra. This power plant is relatively small at only 5MW capacity, but it paves the way for future large-scale developments.
Dish / engine systems are stand-alone units that contain dish-shaped parabolic mirrors that concentrate the sun’s energy onto a receiver mounted above the dish. The receiver takes the energy and converts it into heat which is then converted into mechanical power, similar to a mechanical engine. Each dish / engine unit has a capacity of around 25kW of solar power and it tracks the sun to ensure optimum power.
An example of the dish / engine technology is the Stirling Energy Systems dish called the Suncatcher that will be used in fields of thousands to form a power facility capable of generating over 500MW of electricity.
Central receiver systems are also known as power towers. Looking as though they're honoring a higher deity, thousands of mirrors called heliostats cluster around a receiver that sits atop a tall tower. The heat that is collected by the receiver then heats molten salt as it flows through which is then used to make steam that operates a conventional steam generator. The molten salt can be stored for great lengths of time which means that this type of solar energy generates electricity continuously around the clock.
An example of a central receiver system in development is the Solar Tres power plant being built in Spain. The Solar Tres power plant will be a 15MW facility and it follows on from the successful demonstration power plant known as Solar Two which was located in the Mojave Desert.
One of the crippling problems with solar energy has been the high cost per watt of electricity, but technological advancements are bringing those costs down. Already, concentrating solar power plants hold a huge advantage over the traditional fossil fuelled counterparts in the lower impact to the environment. In fact, one of the only impacts that concentrating solar power plants have on the environment is land use.
There continues to be solid progress made in ways in which renewable energy is used to replace traditional energy sources. Concentrating solar power has proven to be a renewable energy source with still more untapped potential
Interested in Renewables? Read the Solar Energy Facts
We hear about solar power on an almost daily basis. But are we hearing real solar energy facts or is there are lot of talk filled with opinions which cannot be backed up with hard evidence. Since this is becoming a hot political topic there are many solar energy facts out there which are not quite as substantiated as we are lead to believe.
One of the reasons why solar power is so topical is because it is a renewable energy source. This means that, unlike energy which is dug or drilled out of the ground, it is not going to run out.
Another important solar energy fact is that it is a clean energy source.This means that it does not increase levels of hazardous greenhouse gases and it doesn't produce any other emissions which are currently considered to be dangerous to our ecosystem.
Solar energy facts concerning its versatility are a bit vaguer. This is due to the current problems with efficiency and storage. If you are considering converting to solar power completely you may want a solar powered car. This is possible, but you will probably find that you are going to have a difference in performance levels between your traditionally fuelled car and your solar powered. So it is true that you can have a solar powered car, but there will be sacrifices.
So if you wanted to go green and have everything solar powered, would it be possible? Well, one important solar energy fact is that manufacturers are cashing in on the idea and they are pricing solar energy powered products much higher than traditionally powered similar products.
So is solar energy cheaper to run? This is a maze of information and extracting the solar energy facts of this one is not easy. Once solar energy systems are installed they are cheaper to run.The sun will shine for free and every time she reveals her face you will be gaining power to either use, store or sell. In some areas you can sell your excess solar power back to your local energy supplier. This all sounds very good, but there are a lot of upfront costs which you will have to recoup before you are making a profit, so don’t get too excited too quickly. The only way to truly establish if you could run solar powered without breaking the bank is to get one of the solar powered companies to come and do a home assessment. During this they will advise you of the work which would be required to convert your home to solar power. This should include the cost parts and the amount of energy you are likely to be able to produce. Most companies will be able to review your current energy use and be able to tell you if you will be short and need to top up with traditional sources of energy or if you will be selling back to the local supplier.
One solar energy fact you can be sure of is that solar energy is here to stay. We just don’t know what percentage of our energy usage will be solar and how quickly this change over will happen.
