I work theater, and recently moved out to the country side. One of the people I've been working with recently lives in the middle of nowhere, and runs his house almost entirely off of solar panels, and 2 marine batteries that he installed himself for about $2,500. He does have a backup generator that he turns on when he's been using a lot of power tools at home, and he heats with a woodstove. He's lived there 4 years and never paid a utility bill.
When he told me this, it certainly caught my attention, especially the no utility bill part. I had researched solar energy a couple of times, but it always seemed to cost tens of thousands to install. The bottom line seems to be that if you want to install solar and stay hooked into the main power grid, you are required to hire someone who "knows what they are doing" to do the job, so you can't even cut costs that way. (It should be noted that I live in cloudy snowland... see posted pics... and he still successfully runs his house this way.)
However, if you don't hook into the power grid, you can harness solar energy rather affordably. I recently ran across this article http://www.rain.org/~philfear/how2solar.html that is titles "How to Make a Solar Power Generator for Less Than $300." Now, after reading the article I realized two things. A $300 generator is not going to power much... but it will power something and over the next 10 years will certainly pay for itself. (I'm working on getting one together and installing it with 2 outlets/ 4 plugs dedicated to it in my house. I will then use those plugs for random stuff and see how much I can save off my bill with it.) The second thing I realized was that this solar energy stuff is really quite simple.
So, here is my challenge. Someone out there is capable of inventing a window installed unit that will cool or heat a room solely on solar energy. In addition to being very marketable to general public people like me, this unit could be purchased for truely needy and elderly people, and it would be a ONE TIME purchase of charity for each person that could save tons of lives. It could also be a great way to introduce small earth-friendly change into normal households. The person who invents an affordable, effective version of this could make a tidy profit.
I think the qualifying unit would heat or cool effectively at least 8 hours of dark time a room on the sunny side of a building (for best charging) and of a size of about 150 sq ft and cost around $300-400 to purchase. I would certainly buy that product at that price. Wouldn't you?
I think it's also a very possible challenge to accomplish. Who is game? Any gadget people out there with a mind for business?
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Comments: 11
Your topic is interesting. As a person who is obsessed with global warming as a threat to his great-grandkids, I see solar power as perhaps the best method of reducing the CO2 emissions of coal burning power stations. The details are the challenge. I noted your statement that setting up solar panels "off the grid" saves money on a contractor- that does make sense, although part of the appeal for me would be to sell electricity back to the utility if there were a time that i did not need to use it. But yeah, I guess i would be interested in buying a solar setup even if it were off the grid provided i could afford it. With a daughter in college, available cash is very limited.
We have the advantage of living in Virginia with a lot of extremely sunny days. But on the disadvantage side, I am not an electrician, or even a remotely handy person. But still this is something I need to look into because i like to live my convictions. A couple thousand bucks is not much, but 10,000 would not be possible.
That's why my challenge here is for someone to make something that would be useful to people everywhere, same them money in the longrun but be affordable in the short term... very marketable too. Imagine if one room's worth of heating and cooling in even 1/4 of the households of this country were switched over to solar power. Everyone involved would save... well probably not too much... $10-20 a month maybe on their energy bill... but the impact as a whole would be much greater than that. (And if the initial cost were as low as $400, then that would work out to savings for everyone in the end.)
My theory here is that currently it feels like all the viable alternative energy options are really expensive, but they shouldn't have to be. If we start with a small step, the next step should be easier and more attainable. We need a Henry Ford of solar energy... someone who can scale it down to something attainable to the general public.
At this point, a better option seems to be solar hot water heaters. This is especially true if you live in a temperate region because the system is cheaper and much more simple open loop system. They currently give a better return on investment, and if you want to look at it ideologically, most hot water runs on natural gas or oil which is imported (particularly from countries that hate us), while most electricity (which photovoltaic systems produced) is mostly produced by coal, which is actually a U.S export. Not only that, but electricity prices are relatively stable, while oil and natural gas prices are constantly fluctuating and increasing.
Solar hot water is currently the best option, but as photovoltaic panels become increasingly cheaper, they may become a better option.
My electric bill is definately worth chopping down a bit... burning coal is not healthy... but again that's the expensive part that is NOT achievable for most people at the moment.
My focus here is on something small and achievable... if I didn't live in such a frigid region, solar water would do the trick.
My challenege here is for someone to invent a stand alone unit that can be manufactured and I can install in my sunny side window, the way I currently install a window air conditioner, to heat and/or cool a room. The replacement of heat energy especially would certainly help with the gas and oil issue.
Cooling would require you to turn the sunlight into electricity, and there just isn't enough energy in a few square feet of sunlight to do useful cooling. Air conditioners are notorious energy hogs, and you'd need a very large, very expensive photovoltaic array to power one. You'd be better off just keeping the sun out of the room with exterior shutters and putting a fan in the window at night to bring in the cool evening air.
By the way, Daniel's right about solar hot water having the best bang for your buck. Even if your sister's solar water heater is drained half the year, it's still saving a LOT of energy during the six months that it's active. Shame about the maintenance issues, though. There are systems that work year-round in cold climates.
Go with solar water heating, new systems do not have the maintenance problems.
Before you invest in solar heat for your home, invest in energy conservation, it's less costly per unit of GH gases avoided. Solar PV will cot more if you are not connected to the grid because of the added cost of batteries. If Your friend has only two batteries he is living in a cabin with very few amenities, are you ready for that lifestyle?
The typical American lifestyle will need an investment close to $10,000.
You could start with $3k to $4k and add PV panels as your budget allows.
To heat a room into the night requires storage which adds to complexity and cost. The storage must be built into a home from the beginning when the cost is not a factor, tile floors for example.
If you are interested in something that heats when the sun shines, then the technology is already available.
www.pacificsunlight.net
If you're interested in helping other people get a system installed on their homes visit:
www.pacificsunlight.com
It will take me a while to mull over what I will do, but I read the posting and all the comments with intense interest, and I will share as widely as I can.
I posted an article suggesting using solar cells as a new basis for value against the dollar. I may get around to re-posting it with solar in the title so people searching as I was when I found this will find it.
Thank you so much.