power of the church going green

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a 13th century village church is aiming to install solar panels as part of an environmentally friendly fundraising scheme.

parish officials hope the panels will produce more than enough power to light st mary's in lidgate, suffolk.

My house is supposed to get solar panels soon.

Large countries should invest into more efficient (energy gathering) and cheaper solar panels.

This means less profit for the energy companies as well. Mass production with intent of small profits, yet profit enough for independent installers to make a way of life with it.

New homes being built should have mandatory solar panels installed, yet tax breaks making the initial investment burden much less. I think it is being done already, but with cheaper yet quality panels being manufactured it would make the cost burden much less.

Solar panels everywhere!

Solar panels are just now getting to the cost effective point, with their production costs going down. Another big technical hurdle was the inverters that are needed to convert the DC power the solar panels produce to AC current, where it can be placed back on the power grid. Inverters these days have gotten much cheaper. With the price of solar equipment going down, and the cost of energy going up, a solar electrical system is a great investment. They also help balance electricity loads effectively too. Solar panels put out their maximum power when the power grid is under the greatest load.

An older technology I have in my home is a solar hot water system. Those are beginning to get popular again too. It gives me loads and loads of domestic hot water. I also want to integrate it into the heating system so I can heat the house with solar energy.

Once you get over the inital cost, a solar system in a typical home that consumes about $200 worth of electricity will pay for itself in about 10 years or so. Add in a few tax incentives, and it's really worth it. The best thing about a solar system is that they have proven to be very reliable too, so it will perform long after it's paid off giving the user free power! Obviously, they are also great for the environment, because they do not produce any pollution while generating electricity!

Some people are also combining solar electrical systems with wind turbines, since when the sun is not shining, the wind is usually blowing. This allows double the benefit. Wind turbines though do sometimes require a little bit of maintaince, since they have moving parts.

Wind is a good free energy, yet some are concerned with the birds dieing in them. My parents are so that is why they are not getting wind energy production.

That was my eighth grade science fair project. Of course I just did it on a small scale, but my father put a solar water heater on the roof of our house.



You know, that is a very good point. I had not considered that before. There are a lot of windmills where I live and the people who want electricity supplied by wind power have to apply for it and pay a little extra for it, I believe.

thats it if the church is going solar power i am joining the Nazis or the Terrorists.
Joking i love christans. or do i.............

MY house is getting a solar water heater.

The bird issue with the wind turbines is actually solved by a very simple, logical conclusion that I am amazed nobody has drawn yet. Okay guys, how many birds do you see flying on windy days? Usually birds are hunkering down and doing very little flying around when the wind is high...it's a loosing proposition! So, if the wind isn't blowing, the turine isn't spinning, and the birids are flying. When the wind picks up, the turbine starts spinning, but the birds aren't flying.

...problem solved

I have not seen many birds here.

We have a windmill here providing power to about 1,000 homes as a test project. If it goes as well as expected, they will be installing many more. The 1,000 lucky households are all on the poorer side of town, where I guess they needed the financial break, although I sure could use a cut in my $250 a month bill. We get a lot of wind and a lot of sun here, so both methods would be practical.

Just driving by the gas station every morning watching the neon sign light up with higher and higher numbers makes me want to rethink how we fuel our home.

Another really efficient means of getting energy (as well as environmental friendly) is ocean wave energy. They install this gigantic thing that the ocean waves go into, and by the force of the waves, it stores electricity. There are lots of waves out there, and so that's LOTS of electricity. I'm not an expert in all the means of getting and storing energy, but to me storing electricity from waves of the ocean sounds like an awfully good idea. But the problem wouldn't be getting and storing the energy, it would be the shipping it across to other parts of the world that don't have any ocean around them that would make it less efficient. It would probably take lots of powerlines.