Solar

Plug And Play Solar Panels

I haven't heard about anything quite as exciting as plug and play solar panels in quite a long time. The last time we heard about renewable energy that just 'plugs in' was the Jellyfish wind turbine. Sadly, it still isn't availabe yet (to my knowledge), but these new solar panels are!

A company called Andalay developed a solar panel that you can quite literally plug in to your home and be running a grid-tied system. There are no inverters, no expensive wiring, and they say that there are 70% less rooftop parts used in the assembly. Read more »

Solar Christmas Lights

One of the greatest Christmas 'inventions' has been the LED string of Christmas lights. They look and perform exactly the same as a regular strand of Christmas lights, but they use about 2 watts worth of electricity. Read more »

Building Solar Panels Got Cheaper

Wow, I just can't believe how the price of solar cells has come down recently. Two years ago it used to cost around $200 to build a solar panel, 6 months ago it cost ~$150 to build a 72 watt solar panel. I was just checking eBay because I was thinking of building a couple more and it looks like I could build a panel for under $100. Read more »

Criminals Going Green Too

No, this isn't an update to tell you that the criminals are trying to do their part to go green. It's more along the lines of criminals have realized that stealing solar panels is quite a lucrative business. Read more »

Solar Panels Make Roads Useful

What is black and covers square miles of area? If you answered roads than you're right! Roads all over the world cover huge amounts of area, but they only serve one purpose- to help us get to our destination. Read more »

Parking Lots Retro-Fitted With Solar Panels

What's takes up a lot of space that is usually wasted? If you guessed parking lots you're right! Of course the title of the article gives it away, but oh well. I've read a couple stories similar to this and it seems that it's catching on. Read more »

Solar panels Don't Grow On Trees

I personally find it quite entertaining to read some of the letters to the editor of magazines or newspapers. While I do agree with some points of the letter... namely that the costs are still quite high. I don't really think that nuclear power is the answer. Read more »

Protect Your Solar Panels From The Weather

The only thing that you really have to worry about with homemade solar panels is sealing them up good. Since there are no moving parts in solar panels the only thing that can really damage them is water. Let's take a look at how to protect your panels. Read more »

How Much Voltage Should Your Solar Panel Be?

A good question when building solar panels is how much voltage do you want it to put out? It's basically a question of balancing size and power. First though, let's talk about the minimum voltage that you'd need for the 3 main renewable energy system voltages: 12V, 24V and 48V. Read more »

How To Make A Professional Looking Solar Panel

How do you make a professional looking homemade solar panel? There are a couple things that are very important if you want your solar panel to look good. If you do these things with each solar panel you build they will look quite good. Read more »

Parts To Build Solar Panels

What are the parts to build solar panels? It may or may not surprise you that there are very few parts needed to build solar panels. Obviously, the most important part is the solar cells so lets start there. Read more »

Solar Cell Tabbing Wire

What is tabbing wire and why is important when building solar panels? Before we get into that let's take a look at why we need tabbing wire when building solar panels. Read more »

Thin Film Solar Catches Up To Silicon!

You did read that. The highly inefficient thin film solar cells have almost caught up to the standard silicon solar cells. Although these cells aren't going to be coming into production anytime soon, but the future might hold a drastic price decrease for solar cells.

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory have come up with a new formulation for thin film solar cells that can compete with the efficiency of the common silicon based solar cell. Read more »

Homemade Solar Panels

If I was to choose between homemade solar panels and store bought solar panels I'll choose the homemade ones any day. They look as good as store bought ones but they're a lot cheaper. It's quite shocking how much you can save by building them yourself. Makes me wonder why the price tag of solar panels is so high. Read more »

Building Solar Panels

Why should you look into building solar panels? For me it wasn't really about how much money I would save. I just wanted to get rid of the monthly mortgage payment to the electric company. It seemed like energy rates kept going up and up and it doesn't look like they will be coming down anytime soon. Read more »

Tabbing Solar Cells

You may or may not know what tabbing solar cells is. That's ok, I'm going to explain the whole process here. All solar cells need to be tabbed before you can use them in a solar panel. Let's take a look at the tabbing process and why it's important. Read more »

What Type Of Solder To Use in Building Solar Panels

I've recently had several people ask me "what type of solder do I use when building my solar panels?". It's a good question with several right answers. Put simply, you can use whatever solder you want for building your solar panel (provided you don't use plumbing solder). Read more »

Where To Buy Solar Cells

Solar cells used to be quite difficult to get a hold of, but with the rise of the internet it has gotten quite a bit easier. I can remember when I first started looking to build my first solar panel that the most difficult part was finding some decent cells. I was looking in magazines, calling up companies and I still couldn't find anyone who would sell me small quantities (had to order a minimum of 10,000 from the manufacturer). Read more »