Henry Dover answers:

A friend lives on an island where they pay 50c/kWh for electricity. Solar panels are very cost effective for him. Another friend lives in WA state where her power is 5c/kWh. Not such a good deal there unless the grid fails and she really needed electricity enough to buy backup batteries. I live over a mile from the nearest power line- it would cost me hundreds of thousands to run a line to my house so solar is not just an option but a necessity for me.

Henry Dover answers:

Go to instructables.com
turn your hot water off at night,

Henry Dover answers:

I’m sorry but there is no way possible to manufacture a solar cell or photovoltaic cell outside of a industrial environment, they are made from a mono crystalline silicon wafer – consisting of a large-area, single layer p-n junction diode- usually, amorphous silicon, poly-crystalline silicon, micro-crystalline silicon, cadmium telluride, copper indium selenide/sulfide.
There is also some newer technology – These new devices include photo-electrochemical cells, Polymer solar cells, and nanocrystal solar cells.

Companies working on third generation photovoltaics include Xsunx, Konarka Technologies, Inc., Nanosolar and Nanosys. Research is also being done in this area by the USA’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory http://www.nrel.gov/

Henry Dover answers:

Solar hot water almost always pays back in about 4 years, if displacing electric hot water, if you live in a warm climate.

For solar electric, whether you will really save money varies widely by area.

The usual computation is to take the cost of the solar electric system (including panels, mounts, inverter, labor, tax, and fees – but minus tax breaks and incentives) and assume that the cost will be spread over 25 years. So if your system ends up costing you $25,000 net, that would be $1000 per year. You would compare that with your electric bills for a year, and see if it’s cheaper.

I’ve left some things out, such as the cost of money over time, the possible rising price of electricity relative to inflation, and the maintenance cost of replacing the inverter once during the system’s lifetime, but the above is the general idea.

The best way to get an idea is to call several professional installers for free quotes. They will generally run the analysis, and inform you as to how much you could save. You can compare their answers with each other, and with common sense, and judge for yourself. Don’t rush into anything.

Henry Dover answers:

Thermal and solar sources are great, but solar panels are very inefficient at the present time. At the present time our only source of hydrogen is from a manufacturing process known as electrolysis. It takes huge amounts of electrical energy which comes from coal or oil etc