From Guest Blogger Alex Yackery: Solar Panels for Homes in the U.S. Are Rising In Number- Be Part of the Revolution!
There is no dearth of news featuring grim stories about the world’s growing energy problems. These basically focus on the rise in price of electric energy which seems to be rising every year. Reason being, the utilities need to pay more for coal and natural gas, which they use in power generation. Moreover, the utilities have to deal with the huge investment costs for setting new generating plants, environmental controls, power transmission, and much more. All these facts together results into rising electric bills!
In all the hassle, solar power turns out to be is the most reliable and affordable source to generate electricity. Do you know solar energy has experienced a compound annual growth rate of 60% approximately, in the last decade? In 2014, U.S. solar power grew by 6.2 gigawatts, which was a 30 percent increase over the previous year then. And in yet another record-breaking year, 2015, the United States installed 7,286 megawatts of solar PV. During this period of energy reform, solar panels have taken off at a remarkable rate.
If you wish to learn a little more about booming residential solar industry, here are some essential home solar FAQs to help you;
Is There Any Difference Between Solar for Business And Home?
This can vary dramatically in terms of scale and cost. For example, a residential solar system would tend to hold a consistent size, say 5 kilowatts. But for a commercial solar project, it might power a town or a company’s operations, which would definitely be larger.
How Long It Takes for The Installation of A Residential Solar System?
If you have already met the installers and finished with all necessary site visits and planning, it is not a long process. Actually, installation of your solar panel system takes a few days of work. But there are a number of factors which might affect the total time consumed. Two things which can add to time are;
- It can be setting up net metering.
- Creating a proper connection to the grid.
So, overall the installation timeframe is quick and simple.
Is It Beneficial, Even If There Is No Plan To Stay Longer In The Same House?
For homeowners, one of the common questions is- Does employing solar panels make sense if we don’t plan to live in the same home for long? Well, the answer is yes. It is not wastage of money. In fact it is no less than an investment. A typical solar panel system lasts for around 25 to 30 years. Hence, even if you plan to sell it off soon, the solar increases the value of your property. In the housing market, there is a large population of buyers who are excited to buy a solar home. It benefits them with zero utility bills.
What Is the Cost of Residential Solar Panel Systems?
It cannot be defined exactly as the answer depends on state and system size. But, you can get a rough estimate from the data collected so far. Remember, the simplest way out is to calculate the cost of solar across different system sizes in dollars per watt ($/W). Now, this will indicates how many dollars solar will cost per watt. For example, homeowners are paying an average of $3.70/W, in 2016, which was around $8/W in 2008.
Have The Price of Solar for Residential Dropped Recently? How Much?
The good news for the homemakers is that the cost of solar power in the past decade has dropped by 70 percent over the past decade. Yes, a five percent decrease in cost was observed in the last year alone. Thus, getting solar panels for your home is a smart decision.
Solar energy appears to be the future. While the sun’s power is a free resource, it is not only for the utilities and big businesses, also the normal homemakers can benefit from it as well. In case, you are late, make a move today.
Alex Yackery- owner of Venture Home Solar., is passionate about writing and educating people about solar energy. He contributes in making a pollution free environment by taking an initiative to secure the world from global warming though his write-ups. He has served as the sales director at one of the NYC’s largest solar installation companies for 3 years. Being a BA in Economics with business minor from Loyola University in Maryland, Alex is also a former division 1 national champion in lacrosse. You can reach Alex by email or on Twitter.
From the article:
“In all the hassle, solar power turns out to be is the most reliable and affordable source to generate electricity.”
Solar is reliable? Surely you don’t mean that it will produce power 24 hours per day. Since it cannot produce power 24 hours per day, how can it possibly replace fossil fuels in situations where large amounts of reliable power are required at all times?
Just how affordable would solar power be if enough battery storage were added to make it reliable instead of using grid power as if it were a battery? Where are the numbers to show how much it would cost if batteries were used to make solar power reliable, including if the weather were cloudy for a few days at a time? And, to avoid using fossil fuels, that means that the solar system must also power an electric stove, air conditioning, heating, etc.
I’m not really interested in being part of a revolution. However, I am interested in solving problems, including the problems resulting from CO2 emissions. Ignoring the limitations of solar power will not solve problems.
Frank Eggers challenged your posting in his usual very polite manner which we all admire, I am not however inclined to so .
Alex Yackery your commentary is no more than a blatant retail advertisement and not worthy at all of being considered professional; informative; interesting or useful for ordinary people.
It could have easily come from a “used car salesman” marketing handbook.
Even worse, your posting is contemptuously deceptive and misleading for ordinary people and would fail any professional energy engineering peer review.
From a consumer law perspective it would probably also collapse like a pack of cards under close examination.
This also reflects badly on the 2GreenEnergy editor in allowing trivial disingenuous commercial advertising like this to sift through the 2GreenEnergy “credibility filter” unchallenged.
So where to now? Alex please go back to lacrosse, you have not earned the necessary professional qualifications to deserve being taken seriously on this important technological subject.
Lawrence Coomber
Alex: Please try to ignore this. We all know that most guest blogs are written from the perspective of offering some level of content in exchange for a link to the author’s client’s site. I’m perfectly fine on this. There are about 1500 guest blog posts on this site right now, and a great many of them have engaged terrific threads of conversation.