I've been reading up on Solar panels because I think in the long run this would be beneficial in the long run. My Dad had looked into it before passing and had said it was too expensive. How much does it range for getting them placed on the roof and how exactly does that work? I think I remember being told that PGE has incentives and could possibly even end up paying you for having it? What does having panels cover? I know electricity but does it also heat things up? Sorry I'm kinda dee dee dee on this lol. Any and all information would be greatly appreciated. If anyone has solar panels can I get your experiences with them? Thanks!!
The solar panels that we all simply would think are the greatest thing ever are very, very expensive and require strip mining of huge areas of land to make. For several million dollars you can buy what usually is mounted as power source for space satellites upon your roof. This 2'x2' panel and a barrage of battery storage takes care of all the electrical needs you could ever have at home. But this profoundly environmentally destructive technology is not what you had in mind, I'm sure, but is what has been around for quite some time now. It's been a challenge to make solar panels without using complex chains of excited rare metallurgies, but we seem to be getting better and better at it--but I trust others should help you with the practical, now that you know the best panels are not best for us at home.
Would that be Portland General Electric? I used to live in Beaverton. I think technology has not progressed enough for solar electric panels to be a good deal in that area. Too many clouds. If you were over in Eastern Oregon, that would be clearer. If you meant Pacific Gas and Electric, that's another story. It's a good deal in most places in California. PGE only gives a trivial rebate on panels now, but that's ok.
By producing even a small portion of your home's electricity through the use of solar panels, you will eventually experience some financial savings. This may take five years or so, but good solar panels often have a 20-year lifespan. State and federal tax credits may help offset their initial expense. The best thing about solar panel installation is that the energy it produces is clean, meaning that there aren't any bad or harmful by-products produced during the process of electricity generation. So all in all, it seems that solar energy is clean, green energy.
No matter where you live, home solar panels can be installed by professionals. There are also Solar Home Kits you can put into place on your own for less money. You can convert any type of home or business into one that uses solar energy in order to create electricity. Even if you don’t collect enough sunlight for all of your electricity, you can collect enough of it to significantly reduce what you do use. This is one way we can all help the environment. Before you buy solar panels, you'll need to do your homework. Find out what all of the benefits to you are going to be. In addition to helping the environment when you install home solar panels, you'll be saving money on electricity as well. If you are worried about the cost, find out if there is a tax incentive in your area. There should be a rebate or discounted cost offered by the government to entice people to put solar panels in place. Many construction companies are being able to take advantage of them as well. As long as the new homes they build feature solar panels, they can get some great tax breaks. Unsure about the prospect of installing your own home solar panels? That is understandable if you haven’t taken on such a project before. Yet the process isn’t going to be difficult. You can accomplish it with basic tools and several hours of your time. There are some great videos which will walk you through the process.
There's a few different kinds of solar panels. Some of them are only for collecting heat, they're relatively inexpensive and not a bad deal, though installation can be expensive of course. The most sophisticated of these use some pretty high tech collectors to heat up an antifreeze solution that in turn is circulated through a reservoir (how water heater), to supply the house. Your electric producing solar panels are more expensive. You can go on OKorder and do a search on photovoltaic panels and get a pretty good idea real quick. The panels alone can run you 2 or 3 bucks a watt of output or more, and you may need 3 or 4 thousand watts of output to give you reasonable system for your house, depending on how much electricity you use. Then there's installation, for which you may need a professional electrician and so on. If you want a system incorporating deep cycle batteries then that's another expense, but you don't necessarily need those if you're not planning to take yourself completely off the grid. Not that the systems are really complicated. Some people wire panels together themselves from scrap cell components to save money. Of course you'd need to understand the basic wiring involved for that, and you'd almost certainly be required to retain an electrician to tie any system into the grid itself. Although there is such a thing as a plug in grid tie inverter. This is is a gadget that will take your DC solar panel output and feed it into the standard wiring of your house via an ordinary electrical outlet. You'd still need to understand enough to get the DC voltage right no doubt.
