Solar Energy – Advantages Disadvantages, What You Need to Know
Solar Energy: Advantages Disadvantages and More.
Almost all of you has heard talk of moving toward cleaner, “greener”, energy sources these days. It’s becoming a hotter topic than ever before. But the only problem is that you’re only fed a select few solar energy advantages disadvantages.
There is so much more to this than just being more energy efficient. There are a few pros that you haven’t really heard much about through media. So, get ready for this.
Advantages
Clean and Energy Efficient – This is the most obvious and most talked about reason to convert your home to solar. You’ve heard it a million times. Solar makes use of the awesome power of the sun and converts it to power. It’s as simple as that. Save Money – A lot of people don’t realize just how much money you can save with this. Let me be the first to tell you, from personal experience, that you will save A TON. After I built my own solar panels to use on our home, within 2 months our electric bill was down to $10. That’s $10 for the WHOLE MONTH. I wanted to scream. I was so used to seeing the total at $200-$300. I had to read the bill three times just to make sure I wasn’t seeing what I wanted instead of the actual amount. After a third glance I realized that it was a reality. Converting our home to solar on our own has been a BLESSING.
Tax Credits – This is a major reason to convert your home. The government is throwing out tax credits between $250 and $3400 to people who make their home run on energy efficient sources such as solar. That’s a huge credit. So not only do you cut your electric bill down %80+, but you also get paid for doing it. Double whammy! Cheap and Easy to Build – I was really surprised at how affordable this really was. If you go buy pre-made panels you will find that they generally run around $1000 to $2000 EACH. After seeing that I didn’t think I’d ever be converting my home. But then I found the step-by-step guide online and it exposed where you can buy the materials to build panels on your own for under $200. BIG DIFFERENCE. And it only took up a weekend to complete the project. That guide was another huge blessing. Disadvantages
Cost – If you don’t construct solar panels or the solar system yourself this can be extremely pricey. As mentioned above, solar panels can cost over $2000 each and run you close to $30,000 to complete a home conversion. But again, this is only if you buy pre-made systems. Homemade systems are much cheaper and are easy to install. Parts for Homemade – Finding parts to make your own solar system can be hard to find if you don’t have a guide to point you in the right direction. There is absolutely NO reason why you shouldn’t consider converting your home yourself. It was a fun little weekend project, it didn’t cost but a fraction of what pre-mades would have, and it has saved us more money than I thought it would.
