Renewable Energy Solutions For Your Home

If you’re thinking about renewable energy technologies for your home there are a number of different solutions available. This is a brief guide to the different types of technology that’s currently available.

Renewables are really starting to become realistic alternatives to traditional power and heating solutions. When we think of green energy most of us will think of solar and wind power. You have probably seen the large white wind turbines whilst driving and solar panels on peoples roofs.

The next interesting fact in regard to this study. There are however a number of other ways to get green energy that indirectly use the Suns solar energy. Indirect solutions are great because they don’t rely on the Sun being out and blazing directly onto our solar panels. It doesn’t need it to be a windy day as with wind turbines. Instead indirect solar takes the Suns stored energy form the air, ground and water.

But lets first look at some of the direct solar technologies. Solar thermal panels look just like solar photovoltaic panels. You generally need fewer of them on your roof and a typical installation may only have two panels. They collect the heat from the Sun to heat the water in your home. They can contribute most of the hot water in Summer but only partially the rest of the year.

Micro wind power uses a small turbine either in your garden or on your roof. On windy days the turbine will generate electricity and contribute towards reducing your electricity demand from your supplier and thus save on electric bills. They’re a great partner to solar PV panels as it’s usually either windy or sunny or both.

Solar photovoltaic or solar PV are like solar thermal except rather then heat water they turn the Suns light into electricity. A typical installation will cover a large proportion of the roof of a typical house. They work best in direct sunlight but also produce electricity even on cloudy days.

Air source heat pumps are one of the indirect solar technologies. They work by taking the heat out of the air from outside your house and then pumping it into your home to heat it. There are several variants including ones that power radiators, under floor heating or just warm air.

Ground source heat pumps work on the same principal as air source except they get their energy from the ground. Cables are buried in your garden that extract heat from the ground and pump it into the home. The energy is typically used to power under floor heating.

Micro hydro and water source heat pumps get their power from running water such as a stream. Micro hydro produces electrical power whilst water source heat pumps produce heat. You of course need to have your house very close to a river for this to be a valid option.

Micro combined heat and power of CHP systems look pretty much like an ordinary gas boiler. The difference is that they also produce your electricity. This may not sound much like renewable technology but they’re very efficient and therefore save carbon compared to conventional systems.

Finally there is biomass. This is probably the least used in domestic situations. In simple terms it’s much like your gas boiler except rather than burning gas it burns specially prepared pellets. Theses pellets are usually wood based and are designed so that they can be automatically fed into the boiler much like gas is.

So there is the round up of the current available technologies that you could be using at home. You can use a combination of these systems as many alternative technologies compliment each other.

Find out more about free solar and how to get free solar panels.