Enjoying solar’s unlimited supply

At sea level, on a sunny, clear day, 1 kWh of sunlight energy is falling onto

a 1-square-meter surface per hour. Over the course of a sunny day, you can

realistically expect to capture around 6 kWh of total energy from this same

surface area. That’s 180 kWh per month. Five square meters is enough to

completely replace a typical monthly power bill! If only it was so easy.

 If you were to build an active solar panel measuring 100 miles by 100 miles in

sunny Nevada (where you can get plenty of government land for free), you’d

be able to produce enough power to handle all the United States’ electrical

requirements (except when it rained a lot!).

Exercising your legal rights to sunlight

You have legal rights to your sunlight; nobody can build up so that your solar

exposures are affected. Government acknowledges value in the amount of

sunlight that hits your home.

 You have a legal right to demand that your neighbors remove trees and other

impediments to your solar access. If a neighbor’s trees are shading your prop-

erty, you can do something about it. Remember though, this right goes both

ways. If you’re shading somebody else’s property, he or she can force you to

remedy the situation. Check with your local governments to see what sorts of

laws apply to your specifics.Appreciating solar energy’s versatility

You can use solar energy in many ways, each with different costs and com-

plexity. Later chapters and the upcoming section titled “Small to Supergiant:

Choosing Your Level of Commitment” talk about some projects you can tackle.

But for now, consider that solar power lets you do any of the following:

 ✓ Generate electricity for general use: You can install a solar electric gen-

erating system that allows you to reduce your electric bills to zero. This

is one of the most popular solar applications on the market today, and

the growth in solar powered electrical systems is over 25 percent per

year. (See Part IV.)

 ✓ Cook: Using the sun and your vivid imagination, along with a few easy-

to-build ovens and heaters, solar power can help you put dinner on the

table. (See Chapter 9.)

 ✓ Practice passive space heating: The sun can heat your house by strate-

gic use of blinds, awnings, sunrooms, and the like. (See Chapters 9, 13,

and 15.)

 ✓ Heat water: Use solar energy to heat your domestic water supply — or

let sun-warmed water heat your house by pumping it through appropri-

ate plumbing systems. You may need no electrical pumps or moving

parts other than the water itself. (See Chapters 10, 11, and 12.)

 ✓ Pump water: You can slowly pump water into a tank when the sun is

shining and then get the water back anytime you want. You can also

make your tank absorb sunlight and heat the water, thereby reducing

the power load on your domestic water heater. (See Chapter 14.)

 ✓ Heat your swimming pool: You can cover your pool with a solar blanket

to heat it cheaply and efficiently. Or you can install solar hot water heating

panels on your roof that can heat your pool year round. (See Chapter 11.)

 ✓ Add landscape lighting: You can put small, inexpensive solar lights around

your yard and eliminate the need for high-priced overhead lighting powered

by the utility company. With advances in technology, these lights actually

look and work better than hard-wired versions. This is the most widely

accessible solar technology, and it’s nearly fool proof. (See Chapter 8.)

 ✓ Provide indoor lighting: The technological boom in light-emitting

diodes (LEDs) — small, electronic lights that take very little current and

provide long lifetimes — has enabled a number of effective solar light-

ing systems for in-home use with very low power requirements. You can

light your porches and even rooms in your house with a small, off-grid

photovoltaic system connected to a battery. During the day, the bat-

tery charges so that you have enough juice at night to do the job. (See

Chapter 9.)

 ✓ Power remote dwellings: You can completely power a remote cabin,

RV, or boat with solar. (See Chapter 18.)Solar power systems generate their maximum outputs during the afternoons,

when the sun is shining the brightest. Therefore, solar is a perfect solution to

the peak power problems that are becoming more and more common across

the country. In fact, the reason the state of California launched its solar sub-

sidy program was to help mitigate the peak power problems. It wasn’t out

of concern for the environment, as most people believe. Solar is the perfect

solution for peak power problems, and many utilities rely on their solar cus-

tomers to help mitigate the need for peak power.

Utilities could, of course, solve the peak power problem by increasing their

base capacity (the size of their main power plants), but this is extremely

expensive and increases greenhouse gas emissions. The ideal solution to the

peak power problem is to increase the use of solar electrical generating sys-

tems. By installing a solar generating system with battery backups, you’ll be

largely immune from power blackouts. Currently, many people install backup

generators that run off propane or other fossil fuels just so they won’t have

to deal with power outages. A solar generating system provides the same

backup capacity, with only a fraction of the air pollution. And you don’t need

an on-site tank for propane or fuel when you go solar.Initial costs and falling prices

Going solar requires an upfront expense. When you go solar, you get a good

payback on your investment, but you do have to put out cash upfront. Most

people don’t want to bother, and many don’t have the cash. There are a wide

range of financing options (which I describe in Chapter 20), but financing can

be difficult to obtain these days. Banks have become very selective; in general,

you need equity in your home in order to qualify for a second mortgage, and

many people have seen their equity disappear in during economic downturns.

Another issue to contend with is that the cost of solar varies quite a bit

from year to year, so timing is an important concern. Buy now, or wait?

Government subsidies play an important role in the net cost of solar equip-

ment, and so politics plays a role in the equation. In the fall of 2008, for exam-

ple, when the markets were plunging, the federal government increased the

Investment Tax Credit from a cap of $2,000 to a straightforward 30 percent

of the out-of-pocket price you pay after state rebates and other credits. This

made a huge difference in the net cost of solar photovoltaics, and people

who bought their systems prior to the change regretted not having waited

for a few more months. Predicting how subsidies will change is impossible,

but you must at least try to anticipate the future. A crystal ball may help, but

there’s no guarantee.Looking for Sustainable Energy

The words renewable and sustainable are being knocked around quite a

bit, and both are strongly associated with energy conservation. Renewable

forms of energy constantly replenish themselves with little or no human

effort. Solar energy is just one example — no matter how much you use,

the supply will never end (okay, it may end after billions of years, but your

using solar power won’t make the sun burn out any faster). Other examples

of renewables include firewood, water (through hydroelectric dams), and

wind power. Note, however, that firewood is notoriously polluting; the term

renewable does not necessarily imply good environmentalism. Firewood also

has another potentially severe drawback in that people go out into forests

and cut down trees, often without much thought to the overall health of the

forest (a good example of not seeing the forest from the trees).

To make sure that resources last, humans need to focus on conservation,

recycling, environmental restoration, and renewable and alternative energy

sources. Sustainability is commonly associated with such a holistic approach

to personal lifestyle. Not only are sustainable forms of energy renewable, but

they also have the ability to keep the planet Earth’s ecosystem up and run-

ning, in perpetuity. Sustainable energy, such as solar, is nonpolluting to the

greatest extent possible. The basic notion behind sustainable energy sources

is that by their use, society is not compromising future generations’ health

and well-being, nor their ability to use their own sustainable resources to any

less capacity than we have in the past. Who can argue with this very funda-

mental version of the Golden Rule?