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Answer by Eugene N
There is no easy way. You will have to purchase relatively costly cells made out of silicon and then add a power inverter to turn the DC current out of the cells into alternating current to run things in your home. It’s not a cheap venture.

Answer by Peter K
Its much easier and you get more energy with a water heating system. You can make this out of old water radiators boxed in with a glass lid. However, commercial water heating systems will out perform anything that you can make.

Electrical solar panels are really an industrial process if you want more than a few milliamps.

Answer by StanleyB51
If you want to feel superior about yourself, you can definitely do this kind of project. Keep in mind however that your payback will take a very long time. Solar panels are rather expensive. Let’s assume for a moment that you are running 50 W fan. This means that you need a solar panel with the area of about 700 Square inches. It will set you back about $ 300 or more. This panel will have to be exposed to full sun light. Solar panel however produces only DC current. You will need one of two things; fan with special motor or DC to AC inverter. Add another $ 50. 00. If you run the some fan on the grid power you will use 1KWH of energy in 20 hours. Average cost of 1KWH in USA is about 10 -12 cents. You will have to run your fan for over 3000 Hrs. in order to brake even. Keep in mind that you also need wires, some kind of mounting bracket etc. to make you project work.

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Answer by Texperson
Start with mid cool on the 5 setting. Adjust from there as needed to get the room to your comfort level.

Answer by Bonno
If the low cool setting did it, stick with it …slower moving air across the coil picks up more cool, & it might be that this coupled with the size of your cooled area, & heat gain, match up just right. The slower the fan speed & the less time the compressor runs, the less you pay………

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Suppose you want to save energy and you are going to leave your warm home for a half hour on a cold day. You should turn the thermostat
A) down.
B) up.
C) to room temperature.

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Answer by ubczoology
RT since you are only leaving the home for 30 minutes. The average temperature can be easily maintained by using minimal amount of energy

If you were to leave the home for many hours, it is superior to turn the thermostat down since it would be more efficient to just re-heat the home later.

Answer by GMCastanza
If you only left for half hour, it probably will not make much difference on you energy bill what you set the thermostat to.

The thermostat simply maintains the home at an approximate average temperature. If your insulation is good, then heat loss over a half hour should be minimal, at which point, the furnace probably would not turn on anyways if you had not changed it.

To lower you bills, you should set the temp. on the thermostat lower all day, state 68 when during the day when your home, and lower state 60, at night when you asleep or away for at least a couple hours.

Answer by Jim
Logically you’d turn the thermostat *down* so to avoid spending energy to keep room temperature, while no one is in the house.. The question doesn’t state how long a leave of absence is taken, so there is no info to take into account the amount of energy saved vs the amount of energy used to raise the temperature of the household contents back to normal room temperature. The longer the home goes unused, the greater is the energy saving, of course.

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What do you think? Answer below!

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Answer by Fireball226
hire someone to help…see yellow pgs

Answer by tt
Energy INDEPENDENT? Your home is not properly equipped if it’s already built. Also, solar panels are more than a tiny expensive. Plus, they are not the only way that you can produce/save energy.

You’d need an efficiently insulated home to prevent energy/heat loss, you’d have to switch appliances to low energy useage appliances, switch your heating options to radiant rather than forced hot air (more cost effective)..among other things.

Going out and layering your rooftop with thousands of dollars worth of solar panels is also not going to help much in, say, the dark.

Answer by Madam Salami – eco momma
Try joining http://www.justfortheloveofit.org
It’s a freeconomy site, the idea is that people use their skills to help out people they do not know for free. (and make new friends) I know that in my area there are some people with astonishing skills including solar energy installers. Join and see if there is anyone who can help you.
If there is not an installer there is bound to be someone with knowledge to help you further.

Sorry to send you some where else and not give you any answers myself, but it might help!

Spread the freeconomy goodness.

Bright Blessings.

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I guess I need some device I can hook the alligator clamps to that has a 115V plug on the other end I can plug the battery charger into?

Is there more to it than that?

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Answer by gintable
You need a device called an MPPT charge controller. A device that monitors the electrical characteristics of the PV module, and then regulates the output voltage to the battery bank.

MPPT = maximum power point tracking. It is a technology that adjusts the electrical load on the PV module, so that the PV module can always output all electrical energy that it generates.

You can get away with a non-MPPT charge controller, but you will waste a lot of energy. I.e. just a easy diode that regulates voltage to remain below a certain value.

You probably DON’T want the AC charge controller that comes with it. That is specially designed to handle AC signals. The native output of PV modules is a DC signal…but there is a dynamic behavior to the PV module due to varying cell temperature and varying sun irradiance as the day progresses.

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Answer by Peter K
Across the generator terminals would be my first guess, the two wires coming out from the coils. However a small scale Savonius turbine like that is not likely to generate enough to light anything. Well, maybe two LEDs in parallel with one reversed. It is alternating current so this would prevent reverse biasing them.

Answer by Poor one
I think the instructions are not very clear. There are 4 coils. You take a wire from one and connect it (in the correct orientation) to the next. Do the same around the coils until you get to the last. Do not connect the last coil to the first, these 2 wires left are what you connect to the light bulb.

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Give your own answer to this question below!

Which “component” of the wind energy industry is the smartest place for my money?

Thank you

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Answer by Rabbit
The Ishares people have an index on Globl Clean Energy (ICLN). Check the full list of holdings in this index for your target types: http://www.ishares.com/product_info/fund/holdings/ICLN.htm

This will cut out a lot of clutter from “me too” firms that aren’t even close to making money, much less a dent in local energy supply.

Answer by LazarusLong
GE General Electric makes the generators inside. They also are paying a 4.5% dividend right now.

Answer by Kuntree
If you want to speculate I recommend AMSC. High risk.

American Superconductor Corporation, an energy technologies company, together with its subsidiaries, provides an array of solutions based on two proprietary technologies, programmable power electronic converters and high temperature superconductor (HTS) wires. Its products, services, and system-level solutions enable generation, delivery, and use of electric power. The company’s AMSC Power Systems segment produces products to increase electrical grid capacity and reliability; supplies electrical systems used in wind turbines; sells power electronic products that regulate wind farm voltage to enable their interconnection to the power grid; licenses proprietary wind turbine designs to manufacturers of such systems; provides consulting services to the wind industry; and offers products that enhance power quality for industrial operations. Its power electronic devices include power electronic converters and thyristor switches; and grid reliability, power quality, and grid interconnection systems consist of Dynamic VAR, Static VAR Compensators, Power Quality-Industrial Voltage Restorer systems, and Power Quality Static VAR compensators; and wind turbine designs and services include design and development, customer training, and support, as well as wind turbine electrical systems and components. This segment offers its products to the transmission and distribution, wind power, and manufacturing industries through manufacturer’s representatives. Its AMSC Superconductors segment manufactures HTS wire and coils; designs and develops HTS products, such as power cables, fault current limiters, and rotating machines, such as motors, generators, and synchronous condensers; and manages large-scale HTS projects, such as HTS power cable system design, manufacturing, and installation. This segment sells its HTS wire to original equipment manufacturers through direct sales force and distributors. The company was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Devens, Massachusetts.

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Answer by maxximumjoy
Look for a 15-watt, but usually it’ll state right on the package what regular wattage the flourescent is compatible to.

Good luck.

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Answer by AlexTheC
It takes more to turn it on and off.

Answer by treseuropean
To save energy, turn it off. Your personal might wear out slightly (not that significant) sooner, though, because of repeated power on-off cycles.

Answer by Honesty_75
Just turn it off. Even if it does take a lot of electricity to turn it on and off, it will take more if you just use it for an hour or two a day and let it run for 24 hours.

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Answer by BobBy In NH
What I would do is call a solor panel company and ask if they give free quotes and get it in writing. There will be your answers and you can also pick their brain when they are there.

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