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Solar Installation Course
Eco Friendly Gadgets Get The Green Light
Author: Shaun Parker
Global warming and climate change is big in the news at present, and calls for a more sustainable way of living are being directed at consumers at every level. It has become common practice to recycle household waste, sorting through cans, bottles, plastic and paper. Not as common, but eagerly encouraged is collecting organic waste to feed the compost bin, which in turn feeds the vegetables growing in the garden to complete a small sustainable cycle.
These are small, simple things that each of us can choose to do, but sometimes the move towards a more sustainable and eco friendly way of life is out of our control. It is time to convince the manufacturers and suppliers of everyday gadgets and gizmos that they too should be adopting a greener approach to their industry. This will give the consumer the power to choose to purchase from an ethically minded business, bolstering the correct attitude towards green consumerism.
Of course, some would say that we should be doing without certain products altogether if the thought of climate change is so worrying. The truth of the fact is it is difficult to change the attitudes of the masses by being puritanical. If the lads and lassies still want their gadgets, then let them play, but give them opportunity to buy eco friendly versions of energy hungry ‘toys’. Solar power, wind power, wind-up power and kinetic charging are all ways that everyday products we have can become Eco Friendly.
One of the more exciting products to have had a trial is the kinetic mobile phone charger developed by Orange. Through a contraption that has internal weights and pullies that is strapped to your arm, a charge is generated while you dance, walk or run. Initially tested on the grooving masses at Glastonbury, it is hoped that this technology will be a success and become available to the general public. Imagine never needing to find a plug for your charger again, and the possibilities of getting super fit because you need to make a phone call!
A favourite of festival goers, campers, and those who like to escape the confines of city life, wind-up radios and torches have been on the scene for many years now. The dynamo system was originally designed to power radios in South Africa, to enable poor communities to have access to radio even without access to batteries. This technology is also ideal for emergency situations where sources of power are not available; and for equipping places that are visited infrequently, such as holiday homes or log cabins.
When it comes to solar power, it’s shocking how long we’ve been living with the technology and probably barely noticed. The common calculator has been using the sun to charge its energy cells for years. The technology has progressed to the point where a company has manufactured a solar charger for laptop computers, compact enough to carry wherever you go just to make sure you never miss another email! Solar energy is also being used in garden trinkets, such as outdoor fairy lights and garden lanterns.
Harnessing the energy of the wind is generally considered for use on a large scale, along with tidal power. Of course, if thousands of units of energy are needed to power all the energy consumption of a house, a turbine is needed, but smaller options are available to power a gadget fetish. Compact 24 volt wind generators are available to charge a leisure battery, the energy from which can be used just like the juice that comes from a household socket. The generators are incredibly popular on boats and caravans as a reliable and transportable source of energy; and there is no reason why harnessing renewable power shouldn’t be used in the home too.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/environment-articles/eco-friendly-gadgets-get-the-green-light-519098.html
About the Author
Shaun Parker is a leading gadget expert with many years of experience in reporting on Eco friendly gadgets. Find out more about eco friendly gadgets at Pocket Lint, suppliers of solar, wind and energy saving gadgets.
Just looking for some general tips on living greener, things such as solar panels, etc, that won’t cost a lot to implement? Of course, solar panels cost a fortune, but it’s an example. Thanks!
Hey Jenny,
I actually just responded to another question of yours too a few minutes ago. I’ve been reviewing “green” manuals lately and found something called “Earth4Energy” – It’s a great guide with detailed information on how to build your own solar and wind power. You can check out my full review of it @ http://renewable-energy-info.com/ – Best of luck to ya!
Does anybody know if there are any courses for solar panel installation, and/or what trades you need for this position?
hey buddy no need to go for a course or so whenever u buy a solar panel a manually comes with it with complete information on how to install a solar panel and you can always go for do it yourself things search on Google you will find the installation way however i can give a basic idea about the same like there would be two major setps one is electrically installation and second is manual also you need to know that you are going for a roof mounted panel or a ground mounted one so for starting Installing a solar panel power station is very easy. There are just a few steps you need to know. First read the information on the solar panels. The information you will require is the maximum wattage, voltage, and amps or amperes.
A solar power system will require solar panels, voltage regulator, and batteries. The most common systems are 12 and 24 volt systems. The voltage regulator needs to be rated above the maximum voltage and current(amps) of the combined solar panels. The batteries will need to be deep cycle and when combined have the capacity to provide the amp hours needed for your situation.
How to Electrically Install your Solar Panels
Each solar panel will be wired to each other in parallel if you have more then one. When you wire in parallel the amps(current) from each panel will add to the total sum of current, but the total voltage stays the same. The voltage must match the rest of your system. For example, if your are using 12 volt solar panels you must be using 12 volt batteries and voltage regulator. Voltage regulator must be rated above maximum voltage and current(amps).
Connect the output from the solar panels to a properly rated regulator, solar panel voltage regulators are rated by maximum voltage and amps, that will shut off the current flow to the batteries once the batteries are sufficiently charged there by preventing damage to the batteries.
The way that you figure the rating needed for the regulator is by adding the maximum amps for each solar panel, this should be listed on the solar panel, and if they are 12 volt panels and they are connected in parallel then max voltage should be around 22 volts. It’s the amperes that is most importance when choosing a regulator. For example, a 50 watt 12 volt solar panel will give you around 3.5 amps max output, your voltage regulator needs to be at least rated above this vcalue. Any less and your going to cook the regulator and possible damage your batteries.
Solar panels are very sturdy, it’s hard to damage them electrically. On the other hand it’s very easy to damage the regulator and batteries. Batteries can explode if connected wrong, so be carefully when working with batteries. Positive to positive and negative to negative.
hope this will help you
Planets are in solar systems, solar systems are in galaxies, and galaxies are in the universe, so what is the universe in? How can something just be here? A theory of mine is mabey the universe is God. Perhaps it is a living thing. Since nothing on earth will ever know the true answers all I can do is speculate. I personally don’t think the answers will be found by math, which was created by humans.
“The universe is nothing more than an atom of a larger thing. An atom in your fingernail could hold an entire universe in itself.”
You got that from animal hour didn’t you? When i first heard that I thought, “cool” but then I thought about it just a little harder and realized that obviously isn’t possible and if it was, what would happen when the life form our universe is an atom of dies or whatever it is part of is destroyed?
The universe means, literally, everything that exists. Asking what exists beyond the universe is like asking what continents exist outside the Earth. If we can use reason to divine it’s existence, then it is part of the universe.
People of course speculate. Anything not of this universe is termed “supernatural”. And because the supernatural can not be falsified (proven wrong), then it is not a truly scientific question. So your calling the universe ‘God’ (a philosophical thought that has existed for decades. Google “pantheism”) is purely arbitrary, faith based, unfalsifiable, and thus, not proper scientifically.
As far as knowledge, the acquisition of knowledge and search for the truth has always been sketchy, but it is hypothesized that when we unlock the secrets of consciousness, we will finally have an objective standard for the truth, and that will change our society in profound ways. Possibly, we are on the verge of understanding consciousness, as neuroscientists delve further and further into the brain, unlocking mystery after mystery, we may eventually have a full understanding of how our brain creates ideas, and we can gauge which ideas have a proper base, and which do not.
And your comment about math is conceptually wrong on so many levels it’s hard to count. Man didn’t ‘invent’ mathematics anymore than he ‘invented’ electricity (Electrons have always existed, Man simply discovered them and their uses).
Einstein once wrote that “Mathematics is the language with which God wrote the universe”. Of course Einstein was being metaphorical about God, but the point is that 2 + 2 = 4, no matter how many people are counting.
Even Descartes, who coined the term “I think, therefore I am” and who couldn’t be convinced that anything in the universe except his own conscious mind existed, believed that conceptual mathematics were the only universal constant, the only thing man could truly trust as existing.
I CAN’ T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOLAR WINDS AND SOLAR STORMS. AND WHAT STARTS A SOLAR STORM/WIND
The solar wind is the stream of particles and radiation continously emitted by the Sun and affects bodies in orbit around it. For example the solar wind produces magnetic and radio interactions with the Van Allen belts around the Earth.
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/sun/wind.html
It might also be used to propel a giant sail as a means of interplanetary travel some day.
http://www.electric-sailing.com/
The Sun is a very agitated body, with massive and rapidly changing magnetic fields and mass and radiation movements which can lead to violent eruptions and mass and radiation emmissions called solar storms. Coronal mass ejections can throw out tens of thousands of tons of matter in minutes, accompanied by severely increased levels of emmitted radiation. Increased material and radiation loss from storms of course adds to the solar wind, but the massively increased emmissions during storms can mess up comminications on Earth and even shut down power stations.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/14apr_3dcme.htm . . . . .
http://solar.physics.montana.edu/press/WashPost/Horizon/196l-031099-idx.html . . . . .
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,478024,00.html . . . . . .
Using the sea as an analogy, the solar wind is the like normal series of waves and swells ever present on the oceans. Seismic storms from earhquakes and volcanos generate the giant waves and tsunamis that wreak havoc where they reach land just as the massive radiation levels of solar storms do when they reach the magnetic and electrical fields around a planet like Earth.
Tsunamis are only dangerous when they reach the lower water depths off-shore and the nature of the wave is forced to change.
When they hit the land the waves are forced to give up their energy the full force of the waves is felt.
In mid ocean there is nothing to interact with and nothing to harm.
Likewise with radiation storms. It’s when they reach a magnetic or electrical field with which they interact that the harm is done.
Human aliens of course from other solar systems that mixed with Earthlings long ago to create different races and religions on planet Earth.
Perhaps we may be descendants from different planets, and there may be less than half of the people on Earth who are true blooded native Earthlings? Wouldn’t this explain a lot?
What do you think?
I have considered that humans on earth may advance technologically enough to be able to travel to planets in other solar systems and galaxies Since our Earth won’t be viable for human life forever, we will need to do that for humanity to survive.
. If that is so, then maybe we will find life forms similar to ours somewhere else in the universe.
And perhaps life somewhere else in the universe has already developed ahead of ours, and those people have had the technology to travel here.
A lot of solar hot water systems claim to also increase the value of your home but provide no real information regarding it. Who would determine this value or how might it be applied to the value of the home? If it does increase does this increase depreciate?
Yes of course it increases the value the real question is does it increase the value as much as it costs to install it. A smart Realtor might be your answer.
I was wondering how many solar cells you would need to power a small toy car. I don’t have a lot of knowledge about things like this, so if you could direct me to any websites or explain it, that would be great, thanks.(:
Well, first you need to figure out what your requirements are going to be, for example lets say 5v. Solar cells are cheap, these ones here are .55v http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062564. You see that metal strip up top? That is the – and on the opposite side that is the +. You need to solder some wire on both ends and that is kind of tedious if you are not familiar with soldering so you can always get one of these. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2131051 The wires are already soldered and it is in a nice little case too so it is protected.
The one I linked is 6v though and you need 5v (like I said earlier for example). Since solar panels do not give consistent power since it depends on how much light they get you would need a voltage regulator. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062599 That is a 5v voltage regulator, meaning no matter how much light the solar cell is receiving it will only put out 5v, unless it is getting less than 5v of course. So it might be a good idea to get two of those 6v solar cells and connect them in series (connect the + to – of the two cells so the voltage goes up to 12v). The amperage may be an issue but this will depend on the load requirement as well, if it is just a small motor those cells should work fine. Send me an email if you are curious how the voltage regulator is wired up. To recap:
1. Find out how much voltage/amperage your toy car is.
2. Buy solar cells for those needs.
3. Buy a voltage regulator for steady flow.
4. Profit, easy as that.
Price of Solar panels Vs Utility – is it really worth going for it?
The current wholesale price of solar panels from China is €0.46 per Watt peak (which means 32 Rupees per Watt peak).
http://www.enfsolar.com/cell-panel-prices
A typical panel is 250 Watt peaks. Which makes the panel €115 / 8000 Rupees. Of course buying small amounts locally will put up the price.
People normally install 2,000 to 4,000 Watt peaks on their home. Historically people install panels to get special tariffs and these haven’t really existed for homes in India. But the price of panels have dropped dramatically in recent years and they are starting to become cheap enough to be interesting without government subsidies, but payback will still be very long.
I want to setup solar panels to run 2 Air conditioner and simple lights. How much would be the approx cost in USD? I want to set it up India. If you’ve more idea about Indian market then thats better.
This means that what you would be powering with solar electricity are things like the refrigerator, the lights, the computer, the TV, stereo equipment, motors in things like furnace fans and the washer, etc. Let’s say that all of those things average out to 600 watts on average. Over the course of 24 hours, you need 600 watts * 24 hours = 14,400 watt-hours per day.
I know that a solar panel can generate 70 milliwatts per square inch * 5 hours = 350 milliwatt hours per day. Therefore you need about 41,000 square inches of solar panel for the house. That’s a solar panel that measures about 285 square feet (about 26 square meters). That would cost around $16,000 right now. Then, because the sun only shines part of the time, you would need to purchase a battery bank, an inverter, etc., and that often doubles the cost of the installation.
If you want to have a small room air conditioner in your bedroom, double everything.
If you want to just power 2 small air conditioners, your look at about $32,000 +installation
Why can solar energy be not used everywhere? Is it very expensive to tap it?
Solar energy is (or was) very expensive, yes. That is changing. current costs versus long term power production are falling, however. At present, the cost is borderline.
However, solar energy alone is not a complete answer. First of all, for the production of electricity, it has some problems. The main one, of course, is tha tit doesn’t work at night. You either need a storage system (batteries) or an alternative source when it’s dark or cloudy.
There are alternatives which, combined with solar energy, can replace coal. Wind, existing hydroelectric systems, nuclear energy, and tidal power are some of them.
Myy point is, don’t fall into thhe trap of fixating on a single all-encompassing cure-all technology. We need a mix of technologies. That’s true today–we use coal, oil, nuclear, hydroelectric, and other sources–a mix of technologies to provide our energy needs. We need to change themix–eliminating fossil fuels and incorporating new technologies to replace those fossil fuels. There is no simple solution.
Now-as to oil–it is used primarily for transportation. In some ways it is ideal: its easy to store and the fuel stores the energy, whichis released when it’s burned.
There are alternatives. The one I think the most practical is to use electric cars. Current technology makes electric cars with performance and adequate range possible at prices comparable to gas-powered cars (once they are produced in large numbers as gas-powered cars are). That’s acutally a solved problem. What we do not have is a way of producing the electricity to power all those cars (without buring oil or coal, which defeats the purpose) at present. For that–go back to the first part of this post.
But we also do not have a practical infrastructure to deliver that electricity to a fleet of 150 millioncars (in the US). That is not a trivial problem. Think of what it takes to deliver a gallon of gas from an oil well to your car. Here’s the sequence. Oil well to pipeline (hundreds of miles) to refinery to another pipeline to atanker truck to an gas storage tank under a gas station and then a pump to take the gas out o fthe tank and deliver it to your car.
And remember, you need tha tinfrastructure so comprehensive that it blankets an entire CONTINENT.
You will need the samme for electric cars (or any other alternative).
I don’t mean to discourage you–this is doable. We DID do jsut that in the early 20th century to make our current system of gs-driven cars possible. But that took decades–and a hellava lot of engineering and research.
But–as to your question–we wil get solar power on a large scale in the foreseeable future. But we will need a lot more. It’s a complex problem–and a big one.