The energy of the sun is what keeps our planet warm and preserves life so it is only natural to try and use it at home to provide heat and power .
Doesn’t it seem strange to burn fossil fuels to generate steam to drive a turbine that generates electricity and then send it via cables and transformers over large distances to eventually get to our homes when the sun is shining outside our door?
Of course it’s not very easy to generate electricity cheaply from solar power since solar cells are expensive because they are made from big silicon wafers. However, what is easy to do is to harness the energy from the suns rays. This makes more sense than using electricity that we get from solar power to produce heat.
To get the heat, we need a solar collector of some kind . This could be a panel, a double-glazed window, a vacuum tube or a mirror assembly.
The window is an easy option where a South-facing room gathers heat from the sun to warm that part of the house. The double-glazing provides little resistance to the incoming light but creates an insulating layer of air to retain the heat inside the room.
Solar water heaters often use panels for warming water. They are relatively straightforward to build and are uncomplicated in terms of technology. Basically, a pump circulates water that flows over the surface of the panel through a pipe that travels through a lagged water tank that contains the warm water for use by the family members .
More advanced systems use vacuum tubes that absorb solar energy and conduct this as heat to water which is circulated in the same way as per solar panels. The vacuum prevents loss of the collected heat via convection, making these systems more efficient and smaller than the equivalent flat panel.
Finally, a curved mirror may be used to reflect the solar energy over a large area onto a smaller surface such as a water pipe. But this requires tracking of the sun as the earth spins to keep the light focussed .
But to make best use of solar energy, the design of the house really needs to lend itself to efficient temperature management . This involves careful placement of windows and walls , planning of the living spaces and climate control systems.
You can read more about solar energy and alternative energy at SolarWindBuilder.com