Solar Power for Houses: Your Residential Solar Power System

People turn to solar power for several different reasons:

• High energy prices
• Climate change
• Fossil fuel depletion
• Solar energy costs are coming down

When these factors are taken into account, it’s no wonder that people are going solar. Here are some more data on each:

High Energy Prices

While we’ve been hearing most about high oil prices over the past few years, electricity prices have also been going up in many places. When combined with the price of solar photovoltaics coming down, solar looks a lot more practical than it used to. The recession may have lowered energy prices temporarily, but how long will that last? The volatility in energy prices also makes solar power attractive because you don’t get left vulnerable to energy price spikes when you produce more electricity than you use.

Climate Change

Operating a residential solar power system does not produce CO2. While some CO2 is produced during the making of solar panels and other elements of the system, there are vastly lower emissions than from the production of electricity from oil, gas, or most especially coal. Thus, every solar photovoltaic array very slightly reduces the likelihood of catastrophic climate change.

Fossil Fuel Depletion

The easiest, cheapest oil gets used first. Most oilfields and wells being brought into use now produce oil that is difficult to access or process in some way. This tends to keep oil prices high. It looks increasingly likely that we have hit Peak Oil, which means diminishing supplies of oil in the future no matter how much oil exploration and development we do.

While most electricity does not come from oil, prices for all forms of energy are linked and are likely to become increasingly so as more electric vehicles are made, and even more so if Coal-to-Liquids technology is used on any large scale. In the US, coal is the largest source of electricity. If Coal-to-Liquids plants are built to compensate for Peak Oil, this would increase the price of coal, and therefore that of electricity.

Coal supplies are not endless and it looks increasingly likely that there may be less recoverable coal than commonly thought. This is likely to raise electricity prices in the future. In such an environment renewable energy sources, including solar, look better and better.

Residential Solar Energy is Becoming More Affordable

The current recession has resulted in people buying less. During the high oil prices, producers of solar panels and other components vastly increased capacity. When the recession hit, they found themselves with excess solar photovoltaic systems, components, and raw materials. Prices dropped.

The USA is about to start giving larger rebates for solar which will help increase affordability for a very large, affluent market. This is likely to increase demand for solar energy, which might prevent lowering of prices in the short term, but will likely reduce them in the long term by increasing the capacity of industry. China has also started manufacturing solar panels, which is likely to reduce solar panel price due to economies of scale and cheaper labor in that country.

In California there is at least one company that offers leases of solar photovoltaic systems with guaranteed electricity prices lower than that of some utilities in that area. This increases affordability of solar by eliminating the high start-up costs of home solar systems which act as the largest barrier to going solar for many people.

More Information:

Fossil Fuel Depletion, Peak Oil and Energy Prices:

The Oil Drum

Richard Heinberg’s Museletter

Heinberg, R. 2009 Blackout: coal, climate and the last energy crisis. New Society Publishers.

Trends in Renewables and Renewable Energy News:

Renewable Energy World

The exact pros and cons of photovoltaic solar power depend partly on whether you have a grid-tied system or an off-grid system.  So, what exactly are those pros and cons?

Off-grid Solar

Off-grid solar systems require substantial maintenance because of the battery banks necessary for storing electricity.  These batteries require occasional replacement and can be a fairly expensive investment on top of the solar panels.  However, if you live far from the power grid it can be far cheaper to have a solar system than to pay for connection to the grid.  Also, if the grid goes down your power source will not be affected.

Grid-tied Solar

Grid-tied systems without battery backup are the cheapest to set up for most people.  They do not offer any protection if the power grid they are tied into goes down, but they do offer the possibility of selling excess power to the local power company provided that the power company is set up to accept that.  This should be checked before you set up a Grid-tied solar Power System.

Grid-tied Solar with Battery Backup

It is also possible to set up a system that is Grid-tied but has a backup battery bank.  This is considerably more expensive than the standard batteryless Grid-tied System, but it means that if the grid goes down you will not have a power outage due to that failure.

In the end, which system is best depends on your needs and how you plan to use your photovoltaic array.  Photovoltaic power is not a one size fits all technology, and while the array of options in systems can be confusing, at least it gives you a good chance of obtaining a system that suits your needs.  More information on solar power and photovoltaic systems can be found at http://www.homepower.com/basics/solar/, as well as many other places on the web.