anyone into solar, I find this interesting and have even bought a cheap plan to build a solar water heater but just haven't started , I live in a pretty good area but I do have a lot of trees around my house

I've briefly looked into this for my area. But we don't have the exposure necessary for roof tiles and the tree's blocking the exposure are not ours so we have no control over that. I have also found out that it is very expensive (10k) to get even a very basic system installed.

Since I moved to Tucson, AZ about a year ago, I have become very interested in solar. I bought a house that I feel is perfect for installing solar on... flat roof, already energy efficient, etc... but I haven't taken any action besides reading some books and checking around with installers.

Lately, what I've been thinking about is trying to form a solar co-op. I figure if we got 10 (probably more) people together, we could buy the panels and inverters wholesale. If we do the installations ourselves, which is not really that difficult, the cost could come down significantly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_shingles

This is something that appeals to me. Not an option as long as I'm renting, but when I buy I'd love to get at least some of my power via solar/wind.

I saw a very interesting show on PBS recently and in Germany seems it has really taken off

A very frugal friend of mine who lives north of Seattle installed photovoltaic panels on her roof; if it can work in the cloudy Pacific Northwest it can work just about anywhere! She generates most of her home's electricity through solar power, and when she generates an excess it feeds back into the grid and her electric meter runs backwards. Many states now offer this "net metering" option and require utilities to buy back excess power from home solar, wind, or hydro generators.

In a few years I'll be putting up a panel or two on my own house to run my office -- I work as an environmental writer and editor and would love to be able to tell my clients that my office runs on solar power.

Solar electricity is expensive to install and not cost-effective in places that have low electricity prices, but if your electricity prices are high or if you live in a remote area where it would cost thousands of dollars to run power lines to your place, it can make economic sense. And of course some countries and states offer tax rebates and other incentives that make it more economically justifiable.

Solar hot water is a different story: that's a more affordable technology and is usually cost-effective especially in warm, sunny climates. It can reduce your energy bills significantly as it pre-heats the water; your water heater doesn't have to work much to bring it up to the right temperature.

Yes, you see more and more houses in Germany equipped with solar panels. But then, one kilowatt-hour of electricity costs up to 20 Euro-Cents over there, making it much easier for the investment to break even.

Yeah, Germany also a huge government incentive program. A whole different scale than ours.

Solar PV makes the most sense when financed correctly. As luck would have it, current systems have payback periods on the order of 20-30 years, about the length of a mortgage. If you construct a building with PV, you can build in the cost into the mortgage and it's almost revenue neutral. PV decays to the tune of about 2%/year, so you still get output even at the end of your mortgage.

As Brad mentioned, solar hot water is awesome. The industry took off in the 70s through incentives, then got p0wned by Reagan when he cut the incentives. It's making a come back.

Hey Brad, I'd love to hear more about your work if you feel like sharing or have a website.

Ryan

I'm just a writer/editor/manager for an environmental consulting firm; most of my work is for the U.S. EPA. I've been working on climate change since the late 1980s so energy efficiency and renewables are topics near and dear to my heart!

Good man. Keep up the good work. Most of my work deals with energy efficiency and climate change. Love it.

Ryan

Had no idea we had folks on here who work with this sort of thing, any good websites or books on solar by anyone here, it is a fascinating subject but I have no knowledge of how it all works

My parents house has solar water heating and from what I can tell it works really well. They've had it for probably close to 20 years, and I don't think they've ever needed any work done on it.

They have it set up where water from a water heater-like tank circulates up to the panels to get heated. As cold water comes into the system to be heated, it runs through the solar heated tank and then into a standard hot water heater to boost the temperature, if needed (such as on cloudy days). He kept the regular water heater on a timer, but it was rarely turned on. I think maybe an hour or so in the morning, and a little at night, or if we were having lots of house guests. Water was always nice and hot during the day too. I'm sure a better insulated tank would do better than a 20 year old one. They've certainly saved whatever they've put into it.

I'm an electrician and actually recent;y took a photovoltaic installation course. The reality is its fairly expensive and does not generate a whole lot of power. If you use next to nothing during the day and spend extra money for a storage system (batteries) it may be worthwhile. Without government incentive your break even point is somewhere near 20 years on a basic 2500-3000w system. The systems have gotten more efficient but will need drastic improvements before you will see it as a common place thing.

Also the problem with back metering is they force you to install a "grid tie" inverter which basically shuts the PV array done when the power goes out so the linemen don't get hit.

Lastly the power output from solar panels is considered really "dirty" Meaning the wavelength of it isn't consistent this can damage higher end electronics and computers if the issue becomes to big. Thats were those very expensive clean power supplies come into play.

Baker: know anything about wind power. Seems like that would be a bit more reliable around Chicago. I understand that storage would be needed as it's not a remotely steady supply. But it seems like the technology there is almost purely mechanical, so it seems like it's like to progress more quickly as well.

(Also, mostly unrelated.... how difficult would it be to fish wires to make the celing fan an light in my kitchen and bedrooms seperately switched?)

Actually the local union in Chicago is donating a wind turbine to the city. Its going to be built on the lake somewhere in the downtown area. The would like it to be used to power Buckingham fountain but thats still being discussed.

As far as the fans go its usually not hard at all here since everything in Chicago is in conduit. You would have to take the fan down and pull an extra wire into the pipe. Most fans are already set up to have two switch control but the wires just get spliced together to use one switch. That being said if the place is extremely old and hasn't been updated you could run into problems with brittle wire but usually if theres a fan already there its not an issue. Basicaly its just a bit time consuming taking the fans down.