PV Gap

Melanie Said:

grants or refunds for solar/wind powered home?

We Answered:

Check out GovBenefits.gov http://www.govbenefits.gov for a listing of all government assistance programs you are entitled to based on your description

For grants go to http://www.grants.gov

Amber Said:

How do you feel about using solar-powered appliances or other installations at home?

We Answered:

We used to have solar pannels on our roof that powered some lightbulbs in our house. This was in the Philippines more than 10 years ago. It seemed to work, although I think there was some sort of back up power since we had lights even during cloudy and stormy days. I suppose it would be nice to have solar powered appliances as long as it has a backup power source for those short and cloudy winter days. I think it would be great to have some sockets that are connected to a mini station that is constatntly being recharged by solar power. That way you can plug anything in the socket and recharge your moblie or use a hair dryer or reading lamp. It would also be handy for those rare days of power cuts so that even if the main power source is cut due to a storm or something, you will still be able to use those little essential appliances by plugging them into the sockets. I hope this helps!

Lena Said:

Cost to turn my home into a solar powered system?

We Answered:

This varies with how electrified you are (your demand). If you just want solar hot water, you can do this by setting up passive solar heat collectors for little cost. You can build your house into the side of a hill with the only wall facing south (to take full advantage of the winter sun). This degree of insulation will keep you warm with a kitchen stove burning small amounts of wood.
As for powering appliances, here again there are greedy appliances like electric dryers compared to radios, which use very little electricity.
The cost of generating solar electricity will come down. Quite recently it was discovered how to print solar cells on plastic film, which makes it much cheaper and easier to install.

Diana Said:

How much does it cost to convert a home into solar-powered home?

We Answered:

these panels are for daylight not sunlight
a common misconception
i have just had one installed, and they are not cheap, i am in the uk so not much point in telling you the cost for here
look into it long and hard, and make sure you get the correct system for your home, think of future consumption, ie will you have a home full of teen agers in the future, or are you children grown already and about to leave? lifestyle is a big consideration

Tina Said:

What is the best way to make my home solar powered?

We Answered:

If you don't have 30 grand hanging around you must just settle for the smaller things that are offered. I changed all of my light bulbs to LED. They are expensive but my last electric bill was only $35 for a 1600 square feet 4 bedroom 2 bath home. (It is Spring, I used the A/C only 5 days because of the humidity.)

I got (9) 18 LED light bulbs off of eBay for $50 bucks. These compared to a 25 watt bulb for only 1.5 watts of energy. Think of all the light fixtures in your home. I have several ceiling fans with 5 lights in each. I use 4 of the bulbs in the outer and a florescent 7 watt in the center. That is a total of 13 watts compared to 125 watts if you even only used (5) 25 watt bulbs. You save much more it you are using 60 watts each bulb! Do you see the savings? I have a bed side lamp that uses 3 night light bulbs. I changed those too. Now I am only using 4.5 watts compared to 30 watts. Everything adds up!

My next extreme idea is going to connect solar spot lights to my windows. I found a model where I can place the solar panel outside my window, replace the spot light bulb with an LED and place the light inside my house. With decorating touches - no one will know. If nothing else will be guilt free lighting.

Robin Said:

If you have solar powered home, what do you like and dislike about it?

We Answered:

I have a passive solar home. We use the sun for a good percentage of our heating in winter. Heat from the sun enters our energy efficient windows and is absorbed by our concrete or tile floors. Heat is stored there throughout the day and is re-radiated back out at night after the sun goes down and we close the insulated window blinds. Sometimes I dislike the hard surface flooring, as far as standing on it for long periods of time, but we have other areas of our home that are carpet, wood, etc. - that offer more resilience and comfort on joints.

We also have a 4.4 kW Photovoltaic array on our roof for solar electricity and a solar hot water heating system as well. There is nothing that I don't like about our systems. They integrate seamlessly into our household with zero maintenance so far. We don't even know they are there unless we are giving a tour of our home and someone asks about them. We have a grid-tied, net-metered system so we supply the utility company with power on sunny days, and use theirs on cloudy days and at night. Our system is sized so that over the course of a year, we will achieve a "net-zero" energy usage - meaning that we will supply the utility with an equal amount of electricity that they provide to us over the course of a year. They credit us when we produce and charge us when we use, so essentially at the end of the year, we break even, except for some taxes and a small "meter reading" fee.

Our plan is to convert our small car to an electric car so that we can charge it off of our solar panels as well.

Having our own electric production system, or "distributed generation" as the power company calls it, means that the utility company's power plants can be freed up to produce more electricity for my non-solar neighbors without building more power plants. The more houses the utility company does not have to provide electricity for, the less frequent we have to worry about brown-outs, etc.

I guess the only dislike I would have, is that we aren't totally off-grid and completely independent from the utility company, but then again, we'd have to worry about batteries and more maintenance if that were the case, so we're pretty happy at this point! I'd be happy to answer any specific questions about our system! Thanks!