How to Install Solar Panels
The proper installation of solar panels is one of the most important elements of your solar energy system. Although the sun provides its energy at no charge, the purchase and setup of your panels is a big investment. Whether you mount the panels on your own, or hire a company to do the job
for you, here are some tips for the best installations:
Most homeowners have a limited amount of space in which to place large solar panels. Your roof is a likely location. The solar panels must be installed in an area or areas of your roof that attract the most possible sunshine. There are many web sites that provide the amount of sunlight
received in any area of the world. They allow you to effectively track the sun’s position through the year.
Your solar panels must be placed where they will receive direct sunlight. An ideal spot is one that receives the sun’s rays at noon, typically the time at which your solar panels will operate with the greatest efficiency. Check to see if there are tree branches, satellite dishes or any other objects that might obstruct the path of the sun on your solar panels.
If you are installing solar panels on your roof, you will probably use a flush mount or a roof-ground mount. Flush mounts are typically used for smaller homes. Roof-ground mounts are somewhat more expensive and occupy more space, but they can be adjusted to follow the path of the sun during
the year. Roof mounts are often supported by your roof’s rafters, so use a stud finder to ascertain the position of your rafters.
When you have determined the best location for your panels, draw an outline of their position on your roof. Drill small holes in your roof/rafters before placement of the mounts to allow for easier drilling later. When you have placed the mounts in their exact locations, drill holes in the mounts and secure them with lag bolts. Secure metal rails to the roof. Attach the solar panels. Connect the panels to the electrical inverter with a conduit.
About the Author
Shannon Bell writes for Residentialsolarpanels.org a non commercial blog focused on her Photovoltaic experiences to help people understand how and why they should save energy investing in solar power. She writes on Solar Panels for Homes to help people learn how to start save energy from the scratch and then apply those experience to the next level.
Solar Energy Combats Poverty in Guatemala
A small solar panel lets Rufino Pablo Jeronimo, a Guatemalan farmer, run a tailoring business and keep in touch with his brother in America.
From Time.com
Taiwan unveils Asia’s biggest solar power plant
From Radio Taiwan International
Taiwan has unveiled what government officials are calling Asia’s biggest solar power plant. Officials say that currently Taiwan imports almost all of its energy and is seeking to tap into more renewable energy sources.
The two-hectare solar power plant began operations on Tuesday. It is located in Kaohsiung County, an area in southern Taiwan that enjoys year-round sunshine. Taiwan’s Atomic Energy Council says the plant is equipped with 141 solar panels, enough to power a thousand homes. Officials say that the plant would cut Taiwan’s carbon emissions by up to 700 tons every year.
Right now about 6 percent of Taiwan’s energy comes from renewable sources. A bill passed in June would boost the amount of energy coming from renewable sources in order to power 6.5 to 10 million homes over the next 20 years.
The Green Rush Is On In China
by Louisa Lim, NPR.org
A new gold rush in China is actually a green rush — an urgent drive to develop green technologies. One group of Western companies, the Cleantech Initiative, suggests China’s market for renewable energy could eventually be worth as much as $500 billion to $1 trillion a year.
Now, Obama administration officials are warning that the U.S. could risk losing the race in green technologies.
“The future of sustainable energy is here.” The words are emblazoned on a wall at the world’s largest nongovernmental solar research center. It was built by an American company, Applied Materials, in the central Chinese city of Xian.
The cost of solar panels has dropped dramatically — 30 percent in the past year alone. One major reason is the “China price,” or the competitive advantages offered by Chinese manufacturing, with its cheap labor and economies of scale. China is now the world’s biggest producer of photovoltaic solar panels, making about 40 percent of all panels, according to the China Daily, mostly for export.
At Applied Materials’ $250 million research center in Xian, Elizabeth Mayo, a process engineer from Santa Clara, Calif., is working with local staff testing solar panels in the Sunfab panel reliability test lab. This simulates extreme weather conditions, and the company boasts that it is the world’s only laboratory capable of testing 61-square-feet solar panels.
Mayo is impressed by the facilities in Xian. “We don’t have facilities like this in the U.S. We don’t have anything of this magnitude,” Mayo says.
Catrina Ren, an enthusiastic English-speaking engineer, beams while showing a visitor another facility at the research center: vast empty hangars waiting for new pilot lines for crystalline silicon, and thin film solar technology to be installed. “I’m very proud I have chance to work here,” she says. “This is most advantaged tech center in world. I graduated from university only two years ago. I’m very proud.”
And Applied Materials is no doubt overjoyed to have Catrina and her former classmates on staff. Costs in China are much cheaper than in the U.S. An engineering graduate in Xian earns one-tenth of her American counterparts.
And the biggest draw is the eternal lure of China’s fabled market. Gang Zhou, general manager of Applied Materials Xian facility, says the company has decided to put its money where its customer base is.
“China is No. 1 producer of solar panels. That’s where our market is. The China new R&D center, that’s where we validate a lot of R&D work that is being carried out in U.S. and in Europe,” he says.
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Going solar at cut-rate cost
By Tony Castro, DailyNews.com
“I seriously started doing the calculations,” said Dickinson, “and it finally financially made sense, especially with the tax changes.”
In the San Fernando Valley, homeowners like Dickinson and his wife, Sara, a jewelry designer, have become the unwitting faces of the solar energy movement – residents who didn’t set out to be green activists but for whom going green makes sense now more than ever.
The Dickinsons are getting a 23 percent discount on solar panel installation arranged by One Block Off the Grid, an Internet-driven group that in a year has become the nation’s largest solar-buying collective. In its short organizing campaign in Los Angeles, the firm has already assisted 102 clients.
“They were able to negotiate a much better price than anything I found on my own,” Dickinson said.
With David Dickinson’s exorbitant monthly electric bill to chill two wine cellars, run two refrigerator-freezers and heat a pool at his 2,000-square-foot ranch house, it long made sense to go solar.
“But the upfront cost was just too high,” said Dickinson, 57, a Canoga Park manufacturer’s controller.
That was even with a 30 percent federal tax credit offered this year, a California state rebate of 10 percent and additional city incentives.
Then Dickinson heard about a San Francisco-based firm that pools homeowners who want energy-saving solar panels on their roofs into large communities that can get better rates by buying in bulk. The company then brokers significantly lower prices from local installers. Substantially lower cost
This past week, workers began installing 34 photovoltaic panels to the roof of the Dickinsons’ 1960s style four-bedroom ranch house – and put the Dickinsons on the solar energy grid.
Dickinson said the deal negotiated with regionally based SolarCity by One Block Off the Grid will cost him about $6 per watt of power capacity. According to the California Energy Commission, the average total cost of a solar photovoltaic system is almost $8 per watt.
Even after customers like Dickinson pay for an inverter to convert the DC power the panels generate into the AC power appliances use, the deal negotiated by One Block Off the Grid is substantially lower than the average in Los Angeles.
“We wanted to create a group purchase program that makes it easier for people to get into solar energy – one that makes them more comfortable with the process,” said Dave Llorens, co-founder of One Block Off the Grid.
The group’s name comes from its goal of removing one average block’s worth of electrical usage each time it runs a community solar purchase campaign in a city.
One Block Off the Grid, according to a spokeswoman, makes its profit through finder’s fees paid by local installers.
Since its founding in June 2008, the company has mounted campaigns in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, New Orleans, Phoenix and Denver.
In its Los Angeles campaign, which began last week and runs into next year, the solar-buying collaborative has been assisting potential clients through its Internet site, www.solarlosangeles.1bog.org. The Web site uses an online tool allowing homeowners to call up a satellite-generated image of their roof and find an estimate of solar rates and costs.
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