Solar Power: 5 Ways To Use It For Less Than $500

Mother Nature Network:

Ah, the dilemma of solar power: so clean, so abundant -- and so expensive.
W
e've rounded up five ways you can start using solar energy today. Each of these mini solar investments must provide reasonable benefits, not be more involved than a weekend project, and clock in under $500.

Read the whole story: Mother Nature Network

Comments

[ReedYoung]

05:46 PM on 05/03/2010

Garden solar lamps generally use AA batteries, but if you don't need the lamps in your garden, take the batteries out at dusk to use the $10-$20 garden lamps as solar battery chargers instead.

[research]

08:51 PM on 04/28/2010

Why pay so much for solar panels?

Solar Panels prices per peak watt have dropped from 8$ per Wp to less than 2$ per peak what.
98 cents 201001 (1.88 /Wp 090929 was 1.55 per peak watt 090801)
http://www.atensolar.com/EPV.
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm\

60 watts should never cost more than 90$. Inverters are about 50 cents per Wp.

Kits do not seem like a good deal.

just go online and learn what parts you need and how to hook them up.

I have a shed, that I charge an old car battery, to keep my tractor charged. This is not a great system.

If you live in a sunny climate with a good facing roof, do some research, you may find you can get a real solar pv rooftop system installed for free.

[ladasue]

06:05 PM on 04/28/2010

Wow. Yesterday, I posted on that site a perfectly reasonable reply to perfectly reasonable comment about solar attic fans. The original comment stated in detail how attic fans create a negative pressure in the attic, often pulling conditioned air into the attic. I essentially agreed and added that attic fans increase convection and conduction through the attic so the effect of attic fans is nearly negligible and the payback is more like two or three decades for a solar attic fan than "less than a year."
Today, I looked and both posts are gone. If this site can't take constructive criticism, perhaps Huffington Post should not link to them.

[sheila]

06:15 PM on 04/27/2010

Uh, with net metering, loans and feed in tariffs, not only could tens of millions of us spend NO MONEY AT ALL to produce huge amounts of solar power on our home and business rooftops, but if we produced more than we used, we would get paid for the excess.

This is not about technology or property values - this issue is 100% about CRAPPY ENERGY POLICY IN THIS NATION THAT HUGELY FAVORS BIG ENERGY AND DESTROYS THE ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMY. Simple. Proven. Cheap. Fast. Clean. Democratic. That's what we are asking for. No risk to lenders who take first lien on the property. No risk to borrowers who net out at least as much, on a monthly basis, as they repay (and who can offload the house without recouping the full cost of system, since the loan stays with the house, not the borrower). No risk to wilderness because we don't slaughter millions of acres of healthy habitat so "Chevron Solar Solutions" can make another billion dollars off of killing the planet. No risk to politicians because EVERY PERSON IN EVERY POLITICAL PARTY WANTS CLEAN ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE.

So, where are our loans, our expanded net metering and our feed in tariffs? Right. Shelved so that Big Energy can force us to bleed out for them, once again. It's unforgivable.