Create electricity at home - renewable energy. Make a windmill and solar power system

By William Foresttree

By now, everyone has heard of renewable energy. As long as we have an increasing-or even stable-demand for energy and limited supply of fossil fuels, the cost of energy will continue to rise steadily. Renewable energy, however, is an infinite supply that will be quickly become cheaper than fossil fuels. However, until our national power grid switches over to renewable energy-which may not happen in our lifetimes-we'll be stuck with constantly increasing energy prices.

But what about on a smaller scale? Can a homeowner use renewable energy sources to run their home, or at least reduce their power bill? Yes, they can. The "big three" renewable energy technologies are solar power, wind power, and geothermal energy. Of these three, solar energy

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, collected through solar cells on your roof, is the least expensive, least obtrusive, and most flexible renewable energy source to install in your home.

Most people are a little hazy on how exactly solar cells work. They may know that solar cells convert sunlight into electricity... but how does it get into your wall outlets? This article will give you a very, very brief description of how solar cells work.

A residential solar power system consists of four components: solar panels, a charging controller, rechargeable battery pack(s), and an inverter.

Solar panels (usually on the roof) contain grids of photovoltaic solar cells. These solar cells convert the sun's ultraviolet rays into electricity. They achieve this by using a thin wafer made of silicon (with an added impurity to make it electrically conductive). When photons (light) hit this silicon wafer, it releases the electrons which create electrical current.

How much electricity is generated depends on many factors, including the weather, the angle of the sun, and the time of day. At peak efficiency, however, a solar panel can generate up to twenty-for volts of low voltage direct current (24V DC). All the electricity collected by the solar panels is then fed into the charging controller.

The charging controller regulates the flow of electricity from the solar cells to the battery packs. If the batteries are low, the charging controller sends electricity from the solar cells to the battery. If the rechargeable battery packs are full, it cuts off the flow of electricity. This is an important safety feature-overcharging a battery can permanently damage it, and may even cause it to explode.

Next, the battery pack stores the electricity generated during the day, and provides a steady stream of electricity to the inverter at night (or during cloudy days). It is important to use deep-cycle batteries, which are designed to be discharged and then recharged hundreds, even thousands of times. AGM and gel cell deep cycle batteries are the most popular, due to them requiring relatively low maintenance and lasting a lot longer than wet cell lead acid batteries.

Finally, the inverter converts the DC electricity from the battering into the 120-volt AC electricity in your wall outlets that almost everything in your house runs on. Be sure to use a "sine wave inverter", not a "square wave inverter". Some devices in your house will not run on square wave AC current, and everything will run on sine wave AC current.

Remember, this is a very, very brief explanation of how solar power can run your home. If you choose to install solar panels in your roof, you may want to consult an electrician to make sure you've got everything hooked up right before switching it on.