Energy conservation is a top advocacy of green living these days. Today, lots of technological innovations in promoting renewable energy methods have been offered to various factories, buildings, and even residential homes. These methods, after all, would not only let them assist on the advocacy of conservation but also aid them in cutting down on energy cost.
One of the most innovative and trendiest energy saving scheme is the use of solar panels. Solar panels or photovoltaic modules have been long ago used by many industrial companies in a way to cut down from their large expenses. But today, its use has already penetrated the world of household commodity. Frugal citizens, despite splurging money on purchase and installation of the device, think that this method would make up for all the cost, not to mention continuous electricity supply despite power outage. Imagine a house jam-packed with high-energy consuming appliances running all day without even tossing a penny for the electricity bill. Sounds too good to be true, isn’t it? Perhaps a little peek about the truth would help us get to the point.
Advantages:
- Oil, which is imported from other countries, is what most people currently use to power their homes, buildings, and everything in the community. It’s not a renewable resource and takes millions of years before making a gallon out of decayed trees and animals. When it’s gone, it’s like gone forever and we will no longer have power or energy.
- Solar cells are quiet energy generators. They don’t vibrate or squeak while extracting useful energy from the sun.
- It creates zero pollution in producing electricity, which is the most important advantage that makes it more practical than oil.
- Little maintenance is required to keep solar cells running. There are no moving parts in its system, which makes it impossible to really hurt them. They tend to last a good long time with only a yearly cleaning to worry about.
Disadvantages:
- Solar power can’t be harnessed during a storm, on a cloudy day or night. This limits users how much power they can save for the future days or in the nighttime. There will be days that you may still need to rely on billed electricity.
- It requires a large area for installation like almost the entire of your roof to achieve a good level of efficiency especially when you aim for all-day, all-night consumption. Morever, as energy shortages are becoming more common, solar energy is becoming more price-competitive.
- The efficiency of the system also relies on the location of the sun especially in the Northern hemisphere where sunshine varies according to season, although this problem can be overcome with the installation of certain components.
- Solar panels are devices, which can undergo wear and tear. Once this device achieved its lifespan, we have to consider replacing it again, meaning another purchase, another expense.
