The Solar Power System
Hook up a battery to a light with a wire and you've got a
closed loop, from one end of the battery through one of the
wires, to the lamp, through the filament in the lamp, back
out the other wire, and finally into the other terminal of
the battery. AC stands for alternating current.
In alternating current, the electricity switches
direction very quickly. In US homes, it switched
direction 60 times each second! Why bother with all
this changing of directions you say?
It turns out it's quite handy for a number of things,
namely in induction motors, like those found in
refridgerators and furnace blowers, and for the savings
provided by the transmision of AC to your home over
DC. All that electricity needs to be converted
to different levels of voltage (think of voltage like water
pressure in a pipe) in the process of getting from a huge
gneration station found in a colad power plant or
hydroelctric station to the high tension lines to the
feeder lines in neighbohoods to the homes.
At each step of the way, the voltage level is stepped up or
down. The devices used to do this are called
transformers, and they only work with AC electricity, ot
DC. Hence, the reason we use AC for household
devices. In a solar power system, the DC electricity
generated by the photovoltaeic solar panels on the roof of
your home is used directly to power things like the pumps
feeding solar water heaters, but by an large you'll likely
want to consume most of it in your appliances, which are AC
powered. In steps the inverter, an elctronic device
for converting the DC to AC.
By the way, if you have excess solar power, there was
legislation formed not too long ago that allows people in
every state to sell excess power to the local electric
utility at the same retail rate you would purchase it
for. Your power meter literally runs backwards in
some cases, and the power company issues you a
credit. (See the page on renewable energy
credits). Not to mention potential tax
advantges.
Most modern solar power system grade inverters have the
abilty to sense the exact speed the AC power on the incoing
utility line is switchng direction at and to synchronize to
it, so as to "match phase" perfectly. In addition to
inveters, a solar power system of today an use home
wind turbines to augment the energy provided by the
sun in areas of abundant wind.
These technologies present a more than prevalent source of
power to those in the know who can harness it. The
experence is both fun and extremly rearding when you
realize you are not only helping the Earth, but you are
completely independantly living on your own, not teathered
to any utility for electricity.
Now see the difference that can be made
using
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