Renewable Energy
Part of Everyone’s Life
Renewable Energy is and should be a part of everyone’s daily life. At home, at work, at school and even during play time, we should all be aware of our responsibility to Mother Earth. Our resources are being depleted at a staggering rate and anything that we can do to slow that devastation down and to improve our resource stockpile, is good for us all.
One of the best starting points in reducing your carbon footprint is to reduce your home energy use. This can be as simple as turning off lights when not in the room. Set your thermostat to just 3 degrees higher in the summer and 3 degrees lower in the winter. The savings from just one individual’s effort are small, but when you start adding them all together they add up quickly for a huge total.
Of course the very best effort an individual can make is to purchase renewable energy or better yet, to develop green power. This can be solar or wind generated and how you are connected to the grid is of great importance.
When one is considering installing solar-electric panels on your home or installing a home wind turbine in your back yard, you will want to decide whether you need to be on the grid or off the grid.
Let’s look at the two options? A grid-tied system connects to the local electric utility company, so you can sell power to them, or buy power from them when you need it. A grid-independent system does not connect to the local power grid. Instead, you produce all the power you need for your own home and use it or store it in batteries.
There are definite benefits for being on the grid or “grid tied”. First, a grid-connected system is usually cheaper. This means you don’t have to produce all your own power, so you can spend much less for a smaller system when you buy your equipment. You will also need to purchase a lot less equipment overall, because a grid-tied system doesn’t require storage batteries and the expense to house them.
On the other hand, off the grid is the only way to go for many home owners because it allows them to be truly independent of the utility company. A good example of this would be a power outage. If you are “grid free” your lights would stay on all the time and never go off.
If you decide to install a solar-electric panel or a home wind turbine in your back yard, remember that you will be producing all the power you need from clean renewable energy. You will be helping our Earth by using less resources and thereby living with renewable energy, something we all should consider.
