The costs of solar panels have steadily decreased over the last few years. The costs of the installation itself have pretty much stayed the same. The Department of Energy has now launched a $10 million prize in an effort to lower installation costs, which are taking up an increasing amount of the total costs of residential solar power. In fact, “soft-costs”, which basically covers everything apart from hardware, is now the largest portion of today`s residential solar panel costs. The top thr … [Read more...]
Smart Home Reduces Energy Consumption by 88%
It has been one and a half years since Osaka Gas and Sekisui House started working together on the Smart Energy House project. They wanted to test how much energy and carbon dioxide they could save by optimizing a house to be less dependent on outside energy sources. Promising Results From July 1st 2011 to June 30th 2012, a three-person family was put in the house, and their energy usage was recorded and analyzed throughout the year. This is what they found: According to their own … [Read more...]
Rent-A-Roof Schemes – Free Solar Panels Affecting Mortgage?
In the UK recently there has been a lot of buzz about mortgage lenders refusing mortgages and re-mortgages on homes that have solar under the rent a roof scheme. Is there any truth in this, are people actually finding themselves unable to get a mortgage? Prior to April 2010 there were no free solar installations in the UK, in fact there were very few paid solar photovoltaic installations. Two years later there were some 300,000 domestic solar systems installed on people's homes. There are … [Read more...]
Enviromission’s Solar Updraft Tower in Arizona
The Australian company Enviromission has come a long way with their massive solar updraft tower project in Arizona. This structure is planned to be even taller than the current highest building in the world, Burj Khalifa (828 m), and is estimated to generate 200MW, powering about 150.000 typical U.S households. How does a solar updraft tower work? Solar updraft towers are often confused with the towers that are used in solar thermal power stations. These use large solar mirrors … [Read more...]