Who likes solar power?

Question

do you think solar power is great

Answer 1

I installed solar panels on my house almost 4 years ago. They product about 75% of my electrical power. That has allowed me to avoid over 17 tons of CO2 emissions and I am very happy with them.

California where I live has a good incentive program which helped reduce my cost. Also I did most of the installation work myself and that saved money too. My net cost to install my panels was about $8000. I am saving about $1000 per year on my electrical bill and so my panels are nearly half paid for in savings. They will continue to produce power for between 30 and 50 years and so I expect they will pay for themselves many times over.

Even better they have raised the value of my house by more than it cost me to install them and so basically if I sell my house the panels will have cost me nothing.

I think that is pretty great!

UPDATE:

Someone expressed concern that solar panels consume more energy in their manufacture than they ever generate. That is an important issue. Fortunately that is not the case. Modern solar panels generate all the energy required to make them including the energy to refine both the silicon and the aluminum in about 2 years. Depending upon the type of panel that energy payback ranges from about 1 year up to just over 3 years. Since they last between 30-50 years that means they will generate between 10 and 50 times more energy than required to make them.

Answer 2

I do.  If just one average household were to switch to using nothing but solar-power utilities for one month, that would reduce the amount of pollution dumped into the atmosphere by at least 100 tons of pollution.  Now, imagine an entire city (average sized) were to switch to solar-powered for one year. . .it can get pretty imense.

Answer 3

solar power is fantastic! if you have the money to throw down, get some solar panels for your house. it's a lot to put up right away but it pays for itself pretty soon.

AND you can generate more electricity than you use...and the electric company will actually cut YOU a check instead of you getting a bill.

Answer 4

Solar is OK but unreliable and far harder on the environment than people think. Since it is unreliable electric companies have to have generators spinning to accept solar customers back onto the grid at a moments notice. This means all the numbers people quote about how many tons of pollution they have saved are not accurate. They do save because a generator that is putting out 1kw is burning more fuel than one that has the extra capacity of 1kw.

Lets say a community has 100MW of customers and all of them went solar. Lets say that the community was an island. When a cloud would drift over the island the whole community would want to switch back to the grid in a matter of seconds. To handle the community switching back in seconds the local power supplier would have to have 2,000MW of generation capacity on line to handle the sudden increase from zero to 100MW. That is 20x the amount of generation needed to supply a non-solar community. Possibly it means 20x the number of power plants. Hoofta! This gives an idea of why solar is OK but not what people have been told. It is also why full battery systems are the best.

Answer 5

i do!

Answer 6

I do I do!!!

Answer 7

It could be used along with others, its the price that's the down fall. If they made it cheaper and easier for the lower community, those who work hard for almost nothing. It could be accomplished quickly. However the government is a**-backwards so anything that's good for our planet is going to be for the wealthy and anything bad will be for the poor. Kinda screwed in that perspective.

Just keep getting the idea out there . . .  if its cheaper it will change quicker than it is now. This clean air act isn't much other than  S * * T

  However, the change begins with those who truly care, so make a motion and take a step or keep stepping!

Answer 8

yes its  great for us we have a alternative agriculture school in the sticks and the solar power gives us light and we can work the computor

Answer 9

Solar power is ONE reasonable power source, but not the only one. It only works when the sun is shining. Wind is good too, but only when the wind is blowing. Other sources are needed too.

The problem with the power debate is that it gets to be an American Idol contest where everyone votes for their favorite, and all others are evil. That is a stupid way to look at power generation. A mix of power sources is reasonable.

Answer 10

We often believe too easily.

Don't you think solar cells are so expensive because their production is very complicated. May be, during the production process a huge amount of energy is spent.

Solar cells contain either silicon or gallium arsenide. Production of both is very power-consuming. So, I wouldn't be surprised, if it comes out, that installing solar cells we waste more energy, than save.

In my opinion, solar cells energy is highly suspicious.

Answer 11

it's great, but don't forget you need somekind of battery, that are generally highly toxic.....

Answer 12

Yes, but try convincing others. It isn't easy.

Answer 13

I do, but I like wind better because it is windy more often than it is sunny and you can fit more wind turbines in an area than solar panels.