Do you know of any countries that already use the sun to power homes?

please tell me where you are from as well please…

thankyou!

Hey 0077, to answer your primary question, I am quite familiar with solar power. We’ve been powering our home from the wind and sun for 11 years now, and for the last 5 or 6 years, we’ve been going into the local schools and doing seminars on the subject. In some cases, the schools have loaded a bus with kids and brought them out to our home to see it first hand. As for your second question, the average homeowner knows about as much about solar power as they do about the furnace in their basement. Unfortunately, this is where the technology has fallen down. Lots of people want to build a new home, and talk to the builder about solar power. Frequently they are told, "Solar doesn’t work," or, "Solar is prohibitively expensive." Generally this is all they need to hear, and the panels are taken off the house plan.

Solar is not for everyone, or everyplace. Just because a home has solar panels does not mean they don’t have an electric bill, and that says nothing to the fact that a stand alone solar home that does not have access to utility power has to live with a finite amount of electricity. What do they do on a cloudy week? Most stand alone homes, like ours was, use both wind and solar. The reason for this is that the two compliment each other quite well. In the summer, we have long sunny days, but little wind. In the fall and winter, we have short cloudy days, and high winds. When you have a shortage of one, there is generally a surplus of the other. Trying to decide between the two technologies is like trying to decide between a 3 passenger pickup truck and an 8 passenger van as your sole family car. Each has its advantages, but it probably makes sense for a two car family to have one of each.

There is also the fact that lots of people like to grow their own tomatoes, even if it is cheaper to buy them at the market. They have to learn all about watering, bugs, soil ph and weeding. People who live in a solar powered home have a similar curse, they can tell you just how much sun shined last November, and how much power the stereo uses down to the last watthour. Any self respecting homeowner wouldn’t bother with the solar power, or the tomatoes, they would simply buy vegetables at the store, and electricity from the power company, and then sit home and complain about the price and quality of each. That used to be me, now I’m the other guy.

So no, the average homeowner does not know much about solar power, or furnaces. Most homes have furnaces, not many have solar panels. I wish they had both. In the 11 years we have had both, I can tell you that once solar power is installed, it is generally care free. We are on our third wind turbine here, and even though the last one is working better than the first two, it has had its moments. It has shut down 3 times, and had to be repaired twice. In all that time, my first solar panel has continued to make electricity, and I’ve never turned a screw on it or added a drop of oil. Yet, everyone I talk to about renewable energy wants to learn more about wind turbines it seems. They are neat, they move, they seem to have their own personality. They just require tall towers and routine maintenance. So does a car, and almost everyone has one of those too.

Many countries use solar power, almost all of them in fact, you just never hear about it, or see the panels in service. In the US alone there are over 100,000 homes and businesses using some level of solar power right now to operate at least some of their loads. That number is getting bigger as you read this by the way. I’ll list some sources you can check out below if you want to learn more. Take care 0077, Rudydoo

the theoretical maximum efficiency you can get by producting power from an heat source is defined by the carnot cycle.

Everything is clearly explain on the Wikipedia Carnot cycle page.

Have a nice day!

If I read that document right, the feed-in tariffs are lower than the price of regular electricity, that is, no better than any US state.

we are in china

hope we can cooperate

http://renewableenergyarticles.blogspot.com/2009/11/solar-energy.html

(1) No need to précised to fulfill peak loads, those overages could be taken from the grid. (2) The possibility of exporting energy (means earn some money) when surplus energy generated

(2) Grid connected however should not emit the noise which can interfere with the existing grid. Moreover, the must be an appropriate inverters to control power when grid is down.

Grid-connected systems must meet utility requirements. For example, inverters must not emit noise that can interfere with equipment reception. Inverters must also switch off in cases of grid failure. Finally, they must retain acceptable levels of harmonic distortion, such as voltage quality and current output waveforms.

Technically, here is how it actually works.

When the panels are producing more energy than you use (perhaps in the day, when the occupants of the house are at work), the panels drive the electric meter backwards. So say your meter reads 50000 kWh in the morning. As the meter was being driven backwards, the energy was consumed by your neighbors, or others nearbly on the grid (and presumably they paid for it). By nightfall, the meter may read 49985.

So you get home from work, and turn on the TV and lights. The sun has gone down, so the meter starts running forward. By the time you get to bed, maybe the meter reads 50002, equivalent to your buying back the electricity you "sold" during the day. So you only pay for 2 kWh for the whole day, the rest having been "supplied" by solar.

But it gets better in areas with a guaranteed Feed-In Tariff (FIT). In those places, the price to sell electricity to the grid is actually more than the price to buy. So you could sell one kWh during the day at (say) triple the price you buy at, then use three kWh at night, and still come out even as far as money.

Read more details:

http://solar-module-panels.com/pv/types-of-solar-electricity-systems/