Somerset to go green with solar panels – Fall River Herald News
Somerset to go green with solar panels Fall River Herald News Solar panels will be added to the roof of the Highway Department garage on Brayton Point Road as part of a contract approved by selectmen.
Continue reading here:
Somerset to go green with solar panels – Fall River Herald News
Lenexa solar energy firm expanding, gains investors – Kansas City Star
Kansas City Star Lenexa solar energy firm expanding, gains investors Kansas City Star A Lenexa solar -energy retailer and installer is expanding into Massachusetts with the help of a $2.5 million investment. Brightergy Solar , founded in 2004 and formerly called The Energy Savings Store, has completed more than 300 solar … Mercury Solar Systems Expands Commercial and Residential Solar Business to ..
More here:
Lenexa solar energy firm expanding, gains investors – Kansas City Star
Town to see $1.2M in energy savings thanks to solar effort – The Hudson Reporter
Town to see $1.2M in energy savings thanks to solar effort The Hudson Reporter by E. Assata Wright As a part of its Municipal Solar Assistance Program, the NJMC spent a year evaluating rooftops in Secaucus to see which school and municipal buildings might be best used for renewable energy. Two companies have been selected to ..
Continued here:
Town to see $1.2M in energy savings thanks to solar effort – The Hudson Reporter
Saving Energy is Easier With New Energy Saving Products
Now no one likes the idea of power that they are paying for simply going to waste in their home or business but the fact is that its pretty much unavoidable. Just the same what you may not realize is that there are areas in your home where power that you pay for is essentially leaking out. Areas where its being wasted for no good reason at all.
I’ll take your television set as a prime example because are you aware that it may be consuming a full 75% of the power it uses when it’s in fact turned off? You read that right because when you click the remote to turn it off, it remains in “standby mode”. It’s still gulping power, believe it or not!! So then what’s the solution?
So then how can you stop this needless waste? The answer is surprisingly cheap, and incredibly simple. They’re called standby savers and they function just like a normal TV remote with one difference and that is that standby savers shut off the power “at its source”. So the power is cut completely to the TV or home appliance, cutting off the waste.
Then there is the new electricity monitor and what’s so amazing about this device is that it took so long for it to be invented, and brought to market. Believe it or not, all they do is measure and make available on a screen the amount and value of the power your home, or individual appliances are using. That’s it!
Would you believe that the average savings that home and business owners who use this device are reporting, is 25% on their first months utility bill alone? Then over the long term, by allowing them to measure and better manage the volume of electricity that their individual appliances and buildings use, that savings often climbs to as much as 50%, and even more.
Have you ever stopped to consider that you are paying to keep forty gallons of water piping hot 365 days a year with your standard water heater. Just think how much energy that takes up but the fact is that you do need hot water and there is just no getting around that fact. Even so is there some way that you can ease this constant financial burden?
If your water heater does not have a nice snug fitting water heater blanket then go out and buy one. In fact you should buy two, and give it a double wrap for twice the savings. Then again, while they are nowhere near as cheap as a blanket, new tankless water heaters eliminate the burdonsome tank all together. They heat the water only when you need it.
The last item on the list is energy saving light bulbs and it’s just amazing that some folks still don’t use them. The problem is that they used to be a lot more expensive then they are now and also a lot of people simply don’t realize how many bulbs they have in their home, or business. You can also buy them in bulk packs now for even more savings.
Want to find out more about saving energy at home, then visit Sandi Feris’s site on how to choose the best electricity monitor for your needs.
What Makes A Good Quality Solar Panel?
The range of prices for new solar panels is enormous. Some panels can cost up to a thousand dollars each, whereas for the same amount you can almost buy an entire household installation of a different type of panel. What are the reasons for this price range, and what are the benefits of the more expensive panels?
If you read the descriptions of the types of panels at the different price ranges you’ll see a relationship between type and general price bracket. Without fail the most expensive panels are those made from what is called monocrystalline silicon. Somewhat cheaper than these are panels made of polycrystalline silicon. Both these types of solar panels are blue. At the bottom end of the price range are the black panels that are either made from amorphous silicon or are CIGS panels. To make comparisons easy I will only look at the amorphous silicon panels. The CIGS panels require a separate discussion.
The effort required to make a panel as well as how efficiently it converts sunlight into electricity determine the cost of a solar panel. All three of the above panel types use silicon, but there are vast differences in the structure of that silicon. The cells of monocrystalline panels comprise of single silicon crystals. These crystals take a long time and very specific conditions to grow. But once made, these panels will last indefinitely. They are highly resistant to physical degradation from exposure to the sun and are the most efficient at converting that sunlight into electricity. An old monocrystalline panel will usually only fail because of corrosion in the wiring which can be repaired.
Polycrystalline panels are made the same way as monocrystalline units but are a cheaper version. The crystals to make the solar cells are grown more quickly to reduce cost, but the result is that the slices of silicon used contain many crystals. The efficiency of these panels is lower because of the increased number of crystal boundaries in each cell, which act to reduce the conversion of sunlight into electricity. So the more crystals in a cell, the lower its efficiency.
The cheapest but lowest efficiency type is those made from amorphous silicon. These panels are black and consist of a thin layer of silicon spread onto a backing plate. Despite the name that silicon does contain crystals, it’s just that the crystals are tiny, meaning there are lots and lots of them in each cell. This explains why amorphous silicon panels are the least efficient at generating electricity. The thinness of the silicon also makes these panels more prone to physical degradation due to exposure to the sun, which limits their lifespan and cannot be repaired. While cheap, these panels are not a good long term investment.
These factors need to be accounted for when you’re shopping for solar panels either individually or as part of a household installation. It’s also useful to keep these in mind when you’re looking to buy second hand panels. It is often possible to pick up a used monocrystalline solar panel at a good price.
Learn more about solar power at Visit Roger Vanderlely’s website, www.green-planet-solar-energy.com. Read about how to find cheap solar panels that you can use at home or for a variety of applications.
