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Build Your Own Garage Workbench
A garage workbench is an essential piece of equipment in any home workshop. A workbench will allow you to complete projects easily and with greater accuracy. A variety of pre made workbenches are available to fit your needs. If you...
Home Improvement License
All home improvement contractors are supposed to have a license
before they can legally carry out any trade work what so ever!
These licenses basically state that they are able bodied to do
such jobs and have passed all the necessary requirements...
How much difference do Bathroom Faucets make?
When choosing a faucet for your bathroom. Consider the rest of the bathroom.
We have all seen the TV commercial about the client choosing a bathroom faucet and asking the architect to design a house around it. Yeah right! There are some great...
Preparing Your Home for Sale: Make Repairs
Before a buyer considers your home seriously, it must meet his needs in a variety of ways. It must be a suitable commuting distance, neighborhood, design style, floorplan, size, number of bedrooms, etc. If all or most of these needs are met, the...
Repair And Maintenance Of Kitchen Faucets
The kitchen is the heart of many homes. This is the room where the family prepares and shares meals together. Because so much time is spent here, the fixtures and accessories need to be functional and fit with the style of the room. Kitchen faucets...
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Home Improvement – New Solar Technology
Solar panel systems have always been criticized as bulky and unattractive. New solar technology is beginning to make such criticisms a thing of the past.
Solar Advancement
While everyone agrees solar energy is a clean, cost-effective energy source, there has always been one problem. The solar panel systems tended to be large and rather bulky. Frankly, they don’t add to the beauty of a home. While solar panel designs have improved over the years, a new development involving shingles is getting a lot of attention.
Photovoltaic shingles are a major design breakthrough for those who have a distaste for large solar panel systems. These shingles are, well, shingles. The replace the shingles on a roof, but have the physical appearance of a regular roof. Although they are black, they do not standout from the roof in the manner of panels. Instead, the they simply look like a regular roof and many people cannot tell the difference. Obviously, this seamless design is much better than the bulky designs of panel systems.
The technological breakthrough that makes this new technology possible is the invention of thin film photovoltaic cells. Known as “amorphous silicon thin alloy technology”, the designers essentially stepped back from traditional solar panel designs and did some thinking. What they realized is the materials used in panels were not the only ones that could be used. Without getting overly technical, the design team came up with a solution where more efficient cells could be built on a steel substrate. Each super thin cell was tailored to capture different spectrums of the sunlight. When layered on top of each other, they became extremely efficient at
producing power.
The ultimate result is a system that can sit directly on the roof of a home or building, is more efficient than regular solar panels and far more appealing from a visual perspective. If you’re excuse for not using solar in the past was the bulky system, you need to rethink solar.
Will this new technology become the breakthrough we have been waiting for in solar power? It already is if you consider just the following:
1. The United States Army is building a solar powered community using it.
2. Museums in Beijing, China are converting to it.
3. Habitat for Humanity is using the system on many of the homes it builds.
4. Lockheed Martin is experimenting with the technology as a power source for high altitude flights.
In the opinion of many experts, this new technology represent a major breakthrough in solar energy. With energy prices exploding, solar represents the best solution to decreasing our dependence on limited oil and natural gas resources. Fortunately, the sun will be providing free power for the foreseeable future.
About the Author: Rick Chapo is with http://www.solarcompanies.com – a directory of solar energy and solar power companies. Visit http://www.solarcompanies.com/articles to read more solar electricity articles.
Source: www.isnare.com
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