Until approximately a hundred years ago in the West, people only had recourse to renewable energy for heat and light for their homes. They burnt wood and sometimes coal or peat (OK, fossil fuels) and got up when the sun came up and went to bed with the sun as well. In, fact a large part of the world’s population still lives like that.

Things altered with mechanized industry and night shifts. Electricity providers sold the populace on being able to do more instead of just sleeping when it got dark, and the Western population got hooked on buying huge amounts of energy, mostly electricity and engine fuel, which was usually produced from oil and coal.

This idea soon travelled around the world and with rising affluence came emulation and other countries wanted the same. Now we are in the sad predicament where we have to admit that we rode the fossil fuel gravy train to its last stop without thinking about what we would utilize when fossil fuels ran out.

This is where the typical civilian comes in. You have to think about how you want to draw energy in the future. Do you want to be powered by keeping sucking unrenewable resources out of the Earth, or do you want to have as little to do with it as you can? Would you prefer to have everything you have now, but know that the resources that are powering your lifestyle are renewable?

If, like millions of others around the world, you would rather say ‘No!’ to traditional power production methods, then you have to take a stand. But not only in words, you really have to do some something about it physically.

This will mean investing a lot of money up front, which might not be a problem for you or you may even think that taking a stand is worth looking for a bank loan. These are admirable sentiments, but I would like to propose that there is another way to self-sufficiency.

You could make your own!

Why not? The technology has been around for decades and is fairly easy. Most reasonably competent teenagers can put together a bank of photovoltaic cells into a solar panel and then plug that into your home’s electrical system. And if a teenager can manage it, so can you. All you (and the teenager) will require is a solar panel kit and a schematical diagram. A plan in other words.

A solar panel kit can be bought locally from a DIY shop or from the Internet. A typical solar panel will take a few hours to assemble and will produce 100 watts of electrical energy. The electricity produced from these panels is then passed through an inverter that changes the current from DC to AC, making it usable by household appliances and the utility grid.

Do yourself and the planet a favour, get off the grid and start saving money and the planet’s resources, you will be surprised how easy it is once you get going. And do not forget, you can do it in stages of, say, one 100 watt panel a month until you hit self-sufficiency. It is not a question of ‘All or Nothing’.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with a favourite topic, types of renewable energy. If you are interested in Sustainable Energy At Home, please click through to our site.

When it comes to converting your home into a solar home, there are several alternatives, because not all homes have the same problems, the same requirements or the same potential sustainable power sources. Therefore, if you are going to try a total conversion or even get off the grid completely, you will either need to do some do research or call in an expert to make a survey for you.

If you call in an expert, try to get an independent one, so that you can work out the prices of satisfying your energy requirements yourself. You will have to pay for such a report, of course, but you could carry out a report yourself with a bit of work on your behalf. In order to produce a solar home, you may find the rest of this piece interesting.

There are fundamentally two kinds of solar design: passive and active solar energy. Passive solar energy can be used to provide heating, cooling and natural light for your home. Active solar energy is used for powering home appliances, tools and lighting. It is the perfect blend of these two types of solar energy that you will attempt to accomplish, if you are trying to convert your home into a solar home.

You can make use of passive solar energy methods in many ways, although they are more easily built in during the actual construction phase of a new home. The largest area of glass should face south or be within 30 degrees of due south. This will catch the maximum amount of heat. This heat can then be distributed around the house by stone floors and stone walls.

The central heating ducting and furnace fan can be used to assist, if necessary. If the house becomes too hot in the summer, awnings or even solar panels could be dropped down in order to put the windows in shadow. When thinking of passive solar energy, you should try to think of means of supplying warmth and coolness without using electricity. For instance, a skylight at the top of the stairs will permit the warmest air in the house to escape, since hot air rises. This will result in cooler air to be sucked into the house at lower levels.

The other feature of a solar house is the generation of electricity by the deployment of solar panels grouped into solar arrays. Solar panels make use of photovoltaic cells to convert light into energy. This energy can then be used to power ordinary electrical appliances of all kinds or some or all of it can be stored in batteries for later use. Conversion from AC (alternating current) to DC (direct current) and back again, if necessary, is a simple matter.

Solar energy can also be used to heat water for the pool or for the home. The most usual type of system uses pipes filled with a type of anti-freeze to collect the sun’s heat and pass it on to tanks of water by means of a heat exchanger.

A solar home uses energy efficiency to minimize the necessity for heating, cooling and electricity. The use of higher grade lagging, more energy efficient windows, kitchen appliances and lighting than those utilized in traditional homes, will save you a lot of money and energy. As you can see, some of these changes, particularly the passive ones are structural, so hard to apply in many homes, but there is always something you can do to reduce your energy bills and gradually convert your home into a solar home.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with a favourite topic – alternative power sources. If you are interested in Sustainable Energy At Home, please click through to our site.