Governements all over the world are realising that it’s in their best interest to give incentives to people who are prepared to include green energy devices in their homes.

In the US it’s a good idea to take a look at DSIRE to find out more about the federal governments incentive programs, but don’t stop there.  Your local council may also have some of it’s own incentive programs that you can take advantage of and benefit by even further reductions in your costs.

Most of the incentive programs will be in the form of tax rebates and concessions, but there are a few councils that will offer you a cash back on your installation.  Whatever the incentive, it’s worth every penny, especially when you are building your own and can deduct such a much larger part of your overall payment.

In the UK, you can find incentive information through EDF or Department of Energy and Climate Change

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How Many Panels Do I Really Need?

Alright, so you want to build your panels and need to find out how much this is really going to cost you.  If you want to cover a certain percentage of your power bill and see how many panels this will require, then here is the calculation you need to do.

Exacly how many solar panels will I need to build?

Lets start with how much energy you want to produce.  Lets say for example that your home consumes 200kWh per month.  This information can be found on your electricity bill.  If you only have a monthly bill that’s fine, but if you get an annual bill or it only shows your annual usage, then you will want to divide this be twelve to get your monthly.  Getting an annual bill is actually better as it will give you an average per month for the year.

Now that you have this, divide that number by 30 in order to get an average daily use.

eg. 200kWh per month = 6.66kWh per day or 6667 watts per day

photo credit: jasminejennyjen

Now calculate how much energy you can to generate!

You now have your kilowatts (or watts, kilowatts x 1000) usage per day.  This is the amount of energy your solar panels need to produce to completely cut out your electricity bill.  The next step is to see how much energy solar panels will produce in the area that you live in, by the hours of direct sunlight they will be subjected to.

In order to calculate this info, you need to look at your local solar radiation map.  In Europe, this information can be found at the European Union Solar Radiation and PV Maps and in the USA the Solar Radiation Map will give you all the information you need.

It is important to take into consideration that there will be a little power loss due to wiring the transformers, so in the following calculation, we will make the adjustment and multiply the number by 1.25 in order to compensate.

Lets say that your home receives 5.5 hrs of direct sunlight on average daily.  Your Calculation would look like this…

eg. 6667watts / 5.5hrs = 1212watts x 1.25 = 1515 watt

Buying or building solar panels that are 120watt per panel would mean that you would need 13 panels in order to run your entire home.

eg 1515 /120 = 12.625 panels

Building 13 solar panels at around $175 a panel means that your entire solar energy system would cost you no more than $2275.00 that before rebates and incentives.  Not too shabby!

With so many people looking to reduce their electricity bills, the question that usually starts that quest is what is solar energy and how can I generate it for my home.

Energy that is produced by the sun falls to earth in the form of light as well as heat. The amount of energy that the sun produces is massive and could feasibly cover all our energy needs, and harnessing that energy is what we are going to be looking at.

There are effectively two different types of energy that we can use to run our homes. The one is active solar energy which we harness through solar panels consisting of photovoltaic cells. These cells are linked together in a manner that helps us to collect the energy. The second method of solar energy that we can use in our homes is through thermal solar systems. This is heating up of water through pipes that utilize solar panels to accumulate that heat.

First lets take a look at Active Solar Energy Collection.

The effectiveness of these devices will have to factor in how many cells are linked together and how many panels are being utilized. Another key factor is where you are located and how much direct sunlight you will receive. Once you have these three factors, you can calculate how much energy will be produced.

The energy from the sun is collected in the form of direct current or DC which has to be converted to AC or alternative current in order to run the appliances in our homes. This conversion process takes place through a power inverter. You could also consider converting your home to DC power if you happen to live remotely.

Now lets look at Thermal Solar Energy Collection

The devices that circulate and pump water beneath solar panels in order to heat the panels is called a solar heating or thermal solar device. They can heat your water to up to 60 degrees or more depending on the amount of sunlight you have and what you load your thermostat to. The hot water can be used for all household washing and with a little help from your geyser, you can use the water to shower too.

Using this system in conjunction with solar panels will help to reduce your electricity bill that much more.

Cheaper Solar Panels Are What Everyone is Looking For

The price of fossil fuel is on the rise and buying solar panels is just too expensive, so the next best option is to build them yourself.  For the last two years there have been a collection of diy instruction manuals that have become available online.  I bought one and built my own panels and was amazed at how easy it was – but even more amazing was that someone asked me to build some for them.

I built them two panels and then another two and before I knew it, I had myself a great second income building solar panels over the weekend.  The orders are endless with word of mouth being my main source of marketing.  The instruction manual come with some wind turbine plans too, so I built a few of those and as I live in a pretty windy location, they are selling like hot cakes on a cold day.

Starting Your Own Solar Panel Business Is Easy

In this website, I will tell you more about the Earth for Energy instruction pack as well as the best ways to market your solar panel business if that is what you want to do.  I’ll explain what you need to know and what you need to learn to build the panels, what I’ve found to be the best price for resale, how I’ve managed to keep the price down on building the panels and how I calculate how many panels my clients need.

I’ll also show you where you can find out how productive panels would be in your area for any location around the world and what other energy devices you could investigate that may help you with your energy needs.

Solar panels are both easy and economical to build and with the soaring costs of energy these days and the knowledge that the price just isn’t going to come down, it’s a great time to take advantage of the information that is available and start to generate your own free energy right now.