Solar panels are one of the best and fastest advancing forms of renewable energy on the market, and it’s easy to see why they are so popular. They help to save energy that would have otherwise been taken from the grid, they cut your energy bills, and they can make you an excellent financial return. While the initial costs can be a little high, the payback period is comparably short, so don’t cut them out just yet.
How Does It Work?
It’s important to know how solar energy works, because it is this process that helps us to understand how it saves energy. If we put it into simple terms, solar energy is energy that has been captured from the sun. It is converted into solar power, providing your home with electricity or heating.
The solar power itself is generated by a surface that collects energy, which is usually a solar panel system, as well as a form of converting the captured energy into heat or electricity. There are two main ways in which solar energy can be converted into solar power. These are as follows:
Photovoltaic Conversion (PV). This is also known as direct conversion, and is the most commonly used form of generating solar energy. It involves the use of solar panels, or solar PV, for the generation of electricity.
Solar Thermal Conversion. This is also known as indirect conversion, and is used to generate heat for your home. This form of solar energy is starting to grow in popularity. It tends to involve the use of a thermal collector to generate the heat so that your water or home can be warmed using solar power.
The main way in which solar panels help to save energy is because they remove a household’s dependence on the National Grid. The power that you are using is renewable, and less is often required in comparison to the energy produced by the grid. Plus, you can store excess energy in a solar battery if you don’t want to sell it back to the grid, giving you full independence, even at night.
Environmental Benefits
- Cuts Energy
Using solar panels means that you reduce the amount of energy that you use from the grid. You can even use solar batteries to keep your home powered at night. This saves energy, and also reduces the amount of pollutants being released every day.
- No Emissions
Solar energy relies purely on capturing light from the sun and converting that energy into electricity or heating for your home. This means you are not producing any greenhouse gases or harmful emissions that are contributing to global warming. It can even reduce your carbon footprint by 80% in one year.
- Renewable
Solar energy is a form of renewable energy. That means until the sun dies the energy it supplies us with will not run out. Fossil fuels are what we use most frequently at the moment, and they are not a renewable energy source. We are already running out, and using them also causes damage to our planet. One less household using them can have a huge impact.
- No Maintenance
When gas boilers break down, and other forms of conventional heating crash, we often get them replaced, or they require invasive repairs. These can contribute to the harmful emissions that we produce every day, which is not good for the environment. The manufacturing process for solar panels is also not entirely ideal as there is a little harmful waste, but the fact they don’t need any maintenance means that they run green as well.