Renewable Power Sources
Author: admin
What is the best Renewable Energy Source for a small home?
I’m moving out to a rural area where my friends say power is very expensive. I’m looking for some alternate sources of power. Some tips on how to make the house more energy efficient would also be very helpful.
Depends on where it is you are moving. Windmills cost less than solar PV and generate plenty of power…if you have wind. Same for water wheels. You can get free heat from solar if you build your house with a trombe wall. The same, or a solar chimney can provide cooling. Good design can minimize the need for either. Builders will argue a diminishing return on thicker walls with more insulation, you have to decide how much “return” you want. Double the construction price of your house, you can virtually eliminate cooling and heating. You have to decide if the ROI is worthy of the investment.
Which implies an “alternative source of power” that is most overlooked: simple conservation. If your fridge is nearly 1/2 your electrical budget (a pretty good generalization), you can save a lot of energy by converting a deep freeze into a fridge. If most of the other half of your electric bill is hot water, install a 1GPM or 1.5GPM showerhead, turn your hot water heater down to 120F, wash your hands with cold water, buy a Marathon (or similar) water heater. Or build a solar water preheater (heating water from 90F to 120F costs a lot less than heating it from 40F).
Perhaps heating and cooling are your electric hogs? Get some caulking and caulk every wall seam around your house, both at the ceiling and floor. Use solar screens outside your windows in the summer and inside in the winter (!). Long eaves can also prevent solar heating in the summer, yet allow solar heating in the winter. Good landscape design can also help in this regard.
And then there is lighting and cooking and other smaller fry. Certainly look into CFLs. They’ll be required soon enough. Be sure that CFLs installed in the “hanging” orientation have adequate heat ventilation, as the heat they generate “pooling” in a fixture is the leading cause of early failure (it can easily cut their lifespan in half). Buy xmas LED light ropes and staple them around your house — you’ll be surprised how much light they put out, and the light is nicely apportioned, instead of a single big glaring, blinding lamp. And they are WAY cheaper than edison-base LED bulbs. If you are designing your house, consider replacing portions of your windows with insulated translucent panels. These provide softer diffuse light when sunlit, instead of pools of harsh direct light which comes through clear glass, and can be way more efficient than double- and triple-pane windows. AND they reflect inside light at nighttime, making whatever lighting you use more effective.
Okay, I went way beyond the scope of your question, sorry…but, hope this helps!
IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation May 2011
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Tags: energy, environment, green, non renewable power sources, power, renewable power sources, renewable power sources electricity, renewable power sources south africa, renewable power sources us, solar
