Alternative Energy Sources For The Home
June 8th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
If you look round the house you will get some idea on how dependant we are on fossil fuels, and with the rising cost of crude oil our energy bills are not going to get any cheaper. Taking a look and renewable energy is no longer a silly idea. More importantly this renewable alternative energy will never run out.
What am I talking about?
- Wind.
- Water.
- Sun.
These are continuous products that will last till the end of the earth’s life cycle
These renewable sources of power are not just limited to the commercial world; they are attainable for integration to the home at a fairly cheap cost. Just think, with the ever-rising cost of a kWh, how long do you think it would take to achieve a payback on these alternative energy systems?
For now lets just concentrate on the domestic market and see what can be harnessed to power the home.
Lets start with the Sun.
The sun can provide us with heat and light, both can be converted into energy.
- The heat can be used to warm water. Over 70% of the average household’s energy bill goes into heating the space and water, a source of free hot water to use instead of brought energy could make a substantial financial saving. With an estimated pay back of 5-13 years at current prices, Solar Water Heating is quite an attractive and easy to fit system.
- The light can be converted to electricity. By using Photovoltaic cells to convert the suns rays into electricity, we can harness the power of the sun. Solar cells can be arranged in panels on a building’s roof, walls, or other platform in the sun, and can often directly feed electricity into the building. The payback on this item is not as attractive as the water heater at 20-30 years.
- One of the bi products from the sun is heat. This heat is collected by the earth and released throughout the day and night. Ground source heat pumps use a buried ground loop that transfers heat from the ground into a building to provide space heating and, in some cases, to pre-heat domestic hot water. As well as ground source heat pumps, air source and water source heat pumps are also available.
Lets now have a look at Water.
Not all of us live next to a flowing water supply, so we cant all have a Hydroelectric Damn supplying our house! That is one of the things we will leave to the commercial world! There are other elements of water that households can utilise.
- Rainwater Harvesting. Quite simply, this is collecting rain that falls onto the house roof, storing it to use it as a free water supply. This will ultimately save you paying for your garden watering.
- Water recycling. Take a look at the appliances around the home and what do you see as the biggest waste of clean water? Flushing the WC! About a third of all household water usage is for flushing the toilet. Does the WC need to be flushed with clean water? No! The Bath, Shower, Dishwasher, Hand Sinks and Washing Machines wastewater is perfectly good enough for flushing the WC, all that has to be done is all this used water needs to be stored in a tank and connected to the toilets.
Lastly, lets look at ways of harnessing the power of wind.
We have all seen the big wind turbines scattered about, unless you’re are very fortunate and have an extremely large garden and a large wallet, these are not a practical domestic solution. The humble homeowner must turn their attention to a more modest version that will sit on their rooftop.
Wind power is still a large untapped resource that will only grow with popularity.
Wind power is a clean, renewable source of energy that produces no carbon dioxide emissions or waste products.
As you can see there is a whole load of natural power accessible to all of us that can be harnessed to provide us with free energy and reduce our Carbon Footprint.
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