Residential Solar and Photovoltaic Panels for Home Installation - Save Money and Power Your Home the Eco-Friendly Way

Residential Solar Panels – One of the Best Ways to Power Your Home

With all the recent uncertainty in the energy sector, and the corresponding price spikes and ever increasing energy costs, alternative energy is starting to look like the right choice. And for good reason. It not only lowers your carbon footprint (less greenhouse gases, less global warming), it’s now at the point where it’s fast becoming a very cost effective solution.

If you live in an area that’s off the grid, you’re probably well aware that powering your home can be a daunting task. The same can be said if you’re attempting to reduce your carbon footprint and change your energy delivery system to a more eco-friendly green solution. One of the best ways to achieve this is through the use of a residential, or home solar power system.

Gone are the days of paying 5-10 dollars per watt of solar generated power. Solar power is rapidly approaching a manufactured cost of less than $1 dollar/watt. In fact, one company just recently announced that it had broken that barrier.

And while it may take some time for those low manufacturing costs to filter out into the consumer marketplace, you shouldn’t wait until it does. Here’s why:

Energy payback estimates for rooftop PV systems are 4, 3, 2,
and 1 years: 4 years for systems using current multicrystal-
line-silicon PV modules, 3 years for current thin-film mod-
ules, 2 years for anticipated multicrystalline modules, and
1 year for anticipated thin-film modules (see Figure 1).
With energy paybacks of 1 to 4 years and assumed life
expectancies of 30 years, 87% to 97% of the energy that
PV systems generate won’t be plagued by pollution, green-
house gases, and depletion of resources.

Source: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf

Most people don’t realize that currently available photovoltaic solar panel systems have a payback that is 4 years or less!

And if you consider the fact that the more volatility there is in the energy markets, the more savings you’ll realize from a home grid tied solar panel system; suddenly solar power begins to look like the smartest choice.

Even though you should aim to use a hybrid system that combines both wind and solar power, solar power is probably the easiest to start out with. Mechanically, it doesn’t involve much more than mounting the panels, typically on your roof, in order to achieve maximum solar exposure. The exact angles can be easily calculated and are dependent upon where you live.

You’ll also need to setup a charge controller, and a battery bank to store the power you generate from your panels.

There are ways to squeeze a little more output from your panels, most notably by using a solar tracker. But in order to do this, the complexity of the mounting system increases, thus making it much more difficult to do. As an entry level project, installing a fixed solar panel is well within the abilities of most do it yourself (DIY) types.

Whether you’re looking for a residential or business system, there are many different sizes, types, power outputs, and manufacturers – (Siemans, Kyocera, Mitsubishi, BP, Sharp, SunLinq, Suntech, Solar Cynergy, Solarex, Sunforce, and Evergreen) to name a few. Each of these manufactures produces a high quality product, and any of them would be a good choice for a home solar panel system.

Below you’ll find some great deals on various types of solar panels, from complete grid tied turnkey systems to individual panels. No matter what your budget or needs, there’s probably a solar panel that will work for you.