A Simple Guide to Solar Power
A basic look at solar power, for the person who doesn’t know too much about it but is wondering if it’s something they ought to look into. This book should give you some good background to rely on when you have a solar salesman in your living room trying to sell you a system for $25K or more while he's telling it will save you money on the long run. About half the time that just isn't true.
I am an electrical engineer, and over the past few years I have experimented a lot with various kinds of solar power systems. During that time I have watched the solar-electric industry change, for thebetter.
For me, this all started several years ago when I was trying find a way to get some electrical power out to my detached garage without just hiring an electrician to do it. There were no wires running over there and I thought it would sure be nice if I could just go out there in the evening and turn on some lights and maybe run some small power tools. I thought a solar panel and a battery might be just what I needed.
I got it installed but I wasn't satisfied with that. I thought I could do better. So I started experimenting with different ideas. I started adding the house to the system. I looked into the costs and the returns of expanding the system I was growing. The basic solar equipment was beginning to drop in price about this time so I was able to do that, a piece at a time, without breaking the bank.
I learned a lot of practical things, many of them by trial and error. Too many by doing something that looked good on paper but in reality just didn’t work out very well. Many things did work quite well though, and the point of this book is to pass along some my experience (and expertise) so that you might not have to go through the experience of re-inventing the wheel and finding out that it just doesn’t roll very well, like I did a few times.
You don’t have to be an engineer to understand this stuff, at least at a level to determine whether this is a good idea or not. It would help if you were somewhat “techy,” but I have tried to keep this whole thingout of the weeds and at a “basic understanding” level that should be helpful to most anyone.