Friday, May 18, 2012

Alternative Energy Sources Q&A: How does solar Energy compare to other alternative energy sources?

Question by E.: How does solar Energy compare to other alternative energy sources?
Is it better or worse than majority of the other alternative energy sources? If so why?

Best answer:

Answer by nitebearer
It is actually a nice form of energy. Unfortunately it has a few negatives
1: Only available during the day (unless power produced goes to storage)
2: Only produces full power on sunny days
3: Requires a large array to supply decent amount of power, requiring larger area for the array.
4: Storage facility (so you have power at night) requires space and maintenance.

This is where wind is claimed to be better but if the wind dies the generator stops, but if wind it operates day, night, cloudy or rain and usually at night puts power back into the grid and can do so during the day while you’re at work.

Solar is great for low power demand items like lights (you can now get a variety of low power lighting systems) and chargers for cell phones and other devices. To run larger devices you need a large array and power converters and a power storage (batteries) with enough capacity to supply the demands of your devices. The whole system can be quite expensive but yes in the long run could save you money. Note that storage devices require weekly maintenance and checking for problems as they die after a few years so you have to replace them.

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Tags:Alternative, compare, energy, solar, Sources

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