Solar Roadways: The Prototype

Help Solar Roadways win the GE Ecomagination Home prize with your vote: challenge.ecomagination.com The Solar Roadways project is working to pave roads with solar panels that you can drive on. Co-founder Scott Brusaw has made some major steps forward since our first visit back in 2007, so we visited him again earlier this year for an exclusive update on the project, including the first ever video recorded of the Solar Roadways prototype! For more information visit www.solarroadways.com . This Solar Roadway project will be featured in the upcoming feature film by YERT – Your Environmental Road Trip. To learn more about YERT, visit http . And you can become a fan of YERT on Facebook here: www.facebook.com

Solar Homes Can Save You Money

Solar Homes Can Save You Money

 

Solar homes, solar  businesses, solar cars, solar factories, etc, this is the future, this is where our country needs to head, it widely known and well excepted that solar energy is clean, efficient and very cost effective.  We just need to step up the implementation of making our every day life dependent on solar power and not fossil fuels, we have solar panels, electric cars, companies, factories but we still need to do more, we need to increase the number of these facilities and modes of travel, where this is the majority and not the minority.

 

What the smart ones are doing

 

Property owners are taking advantage of generous tax credits by adding energy efficient components to their homes and nearby structures. Some homeowners add solar arrays to their roofs, while others add them to their garages. It doesn’t matter if the building is newly constructed homes or decades old because skilled installers can retrofit solar panels and arrays to accommodate any home with southern exposure. Here are a few examples of how the arrays might look on your home.

 

What about two story homes?

 

The Northern California Solar Energy Association, in its glossary, defines natural convection as “A method of heat transfer where a fluid (liquid, gas or molten metal) picks up heat from one object and carries it to another by currents that result from the rising of lighter, warm fluid and the sinking of heavier, cool fluid. The two objects exchanging energy don’t have to physically touch. Convection is the source of the ‘wind chill factor’ and the ‘cooling breeze’ we experience outdoors and the ‘draft’ we feel often feel while indoors.” In a two-story passive solar house with open spaces, warm air will rise to the top. The house can be designed to take advantage of this form of natural convection in order to cool the house using passive methods.

 

Frederick Bernard, the owner of Acorn Builders, a custom home designer, builder, and remodeler, says, “In a lot of these types of homes, you see what’s called a heat chimney. It’s like a cupola with vents in it. It can be made with operable windows so that you can open them at night and the heat will leave the house and draw in the cooler outdoor air. That’s a passive way to cool a house.”

The green-rated.org website, a project of Portland’s Office of Sustainable Development, says, “When warm air rises and leaks out at the top of a building, cooler air is drawn in at the bottom. Openings and spaces, such as atriums, can be designed to encourage this type of flow. A heat chimney is a device that uses the sun to heat air to create convection. An example of such a device is a cupola on top of a house.”

The Office of Sustainable Development cites the People’s Food Co-op in Portland as an example of a building that successfully uses a heat chimney. The Co-op “installed a chimney stack to help cool their building using natural ventilation. The stack was installed as one component of an well-integrated heating and cooling system that eliminated the need for mechanical cooling.” Another Portland example is Ode to Roses, where the designer constructed the building “to take advantage of heat rising and consequently avoided the need to mechanically cool the building. The owner strategically installed a multi-purpose clerestory (or monitor) on the second floor that drastically increases daylight penetration and serves as a hot air outlet when perimeter outlets are opened.”

You can also use active methods, such as traditional air-conditioning, to help equalize the temperature differences between the first and second stories of a two-story passive solar house. Bernard says, “It’s all in the design of the system. You can design your two-story house with an air-conditioning system so that it distributes more cool air to the upper floors or draws the heat from the top floors and cools it, then distributes it back to the lower floors or draws heat from your upper floors and sends it back into your lower floors so that your upper floors aren’t hotter than your lower floors. These are ways to make sure your top floors aren’t always hotter than your bottom floors. You need to rely on your heating and cooling contractor for that.”

Bernard adds, “Some cities, like Austin, have rebate programs for sealing and insulating your home to hold a more constant temperature and make it more energy efficient.”

Thinking about Installing a Do It Yourself Home Solar Panels?

Assessing a do it yourself solar electricity system on your home? Imagine changing openly available solar electricity into electricity that may be used to power your house.

The quantity of electricity that’ll be generated relies on the number and wattage of the solar panels and the amount of direct sun light the solar panels receive. If the solar panels are manufacturing more electricity that what’s wanted to run your house the excess solar energy can be sold to the electrical company.

This is a great situation to be in, be selling electricity back to the application district. There are a couple of things you need to consider before deciding on installing a solar energy system on your home.

To regain the original investment you want to figure out how long it’ll take. You do not need to move out of the home before having recovered your investment. Have you got a huge enough room on your roof where the solar panels can be installed on that receives at least 6 hours of direct sun light each day? Solar cells work the best in direct sunlight. If the majority of the southerly facing roof space is covered by nice giant trees a photovoltaic system isn’t going to supply much electricity.

Are you snug walking on your roof? Is it too steep for you? When installing a do it yourself solar energy system you’ll be passing a little time on the roof installing the solar panels and wiring them together. If you’re not snug working on the roof for a day or 2 you may want to think about hiring someone to install the solar panels for you. A way to find a do it yourself solar electricity outlets that you can work with is to commence with the yellow pages and contact the local solar outlets in your neighborhood. Check out each retailer with the local BBB. Another possibility is to search for solar retailer sites with the search phrase ‘do it yourself solar electricity system’. Be certain to verify the site is credible and secure.

Before buying a do it yourself solar energy system from a retailer be they local or online there are some questions you need to ask them.

Will they help you identify the load of your house and size the solar electricity system to your house’s electric needs?

Will they let you review the installation instructions before buying the solar electricity system?

How long is the guaranty on the equipment?

You are now prepared to find the right retail outlet that may offer you the best do it yourself solar power system and great shopper service. Even if you choose to not install a solar energy system yourself, deliberate over hiring a local company that makes a specialty of installing solar energy systems in houses. It’s going to be dearer, but in the long term the price tag savings will be definitely worth it.

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