I have just read an interesting piece of article on how solar power cost can affect the value of your house. http://bit.ly/bIu5t0
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Can You Really Build Your Solar System
DIY guides contain interesting solar power information that cannot be overlooked.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
MIT Engineers Experimenting with “Solar Antennas”
Thinking hard about installing a solar system on your home or business building? While costs have often presented the biggest barrier to integrating solar energy into a building’s power mix, new financing and leasing programs have helped many overcome that hurdle. Roof space, however, still presents a challenge: unless you’ve got a big piece of land, rooftop panels are likely your only option for system placement… and the size of your rooftop will limit the number of solar panels you can install.
So far, few have gotten into the roof expansion business (which probably doesn’t make sense, anyway); a team of researchers at MIT (above left), however, have been digging into new technology that could help you make much more power in the space you do have. Chemical engineering professor Michael Strano and a group of his students have been experimenting with building solar energy “antennas” out of carbon nanotubes (hollow tubes of carbon atoms — above right) that would “concentrate solar energy 100 times more than a regular photovoltaic cell.” These tiny antennas consist “of a fibrous rope about 10 micrometers (millionths of a meter) long and four micrometers thick, containing about 30 million carbon nanotubes.”
In conjunction with a semiconductor, these nano-antennas could collect usable amounts of solar energy, and convert it into electricity, with very small space requirements. As Strano describes it, “Instead of having your whole roof be a photovoltaic cell, you could have little spots that were tiny photovoltaic cells, with antennas that would drive photons into them…”
While this technology is nowhere near commercial availability, it does create an innovative context for rethinking solar power production and efficiency. If you’re interested in the geekier details, check out the MIT News Office’s explanation of Strano and team’s “solar funnels“…
Know a bit about nanotechnology? Or the physics of solar energy conversion? Let us know what you think of this development…
Jeff McIntire-Strasburg is the founder and editor of sustainablog. If you’re thinking about solar power for your home, check out the current listings of grid tie solar systems at sustainablog’s Green Choices product comparison engine.
Images credit: MIT News, Patrick Gillooly, and Geraldine Paulus
Posted on September 17th in Solar Research by Guest Author.
Brilliant way to save the space issue
Saturday, September 4, 2010
7 Baby Steps to Go Solar
DIY packages are becoming more effecient and can save a lot of cost.
For more solar power infromation visit
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