Solar Powered Homes, Our Future.

Solar Powered Homes! What can I say? Solar powered homes would be the idyll for all of us, but as ever, with existing technology, solar power on a scale large enough to run even a modest well insulated energy efficient home, is well beyond the financial means of most of us. Certainly with all the add ons, as in the 2 videos below of homes with Hydrogen generators, and all sorts of other stuff, which to be honest went right over my head. No, not really, but it’s all pretty overwhelming.

Anyway, these solar powered homes are possible, though I would say that on a large scale, not really a practical reality, wholly because of the several lifetimes it would take to not only pay off the loans, but also to have payback in energy terms. I know it’s not all about the money, but unfortunately, if you can’t afford to go solar, then that’s it, no solar house.

I’m definitely not trashing solar homes, I think that what has been achieved by the people in the solar home video’s below, is fantastic, and should, and will be the idyll. However, on a brighter note, the future is looking very promising, and a lot cheaper, with the new generation of solar cells, as shown in the last 2 video’s, courtesy of Nanosolar. These cells should be with us in the very near future, and will put total solar energy within affordable reach of most of us. In fact these new solar cells will enable affordable, much bigger solar arrays to be used, therefore making redundant, the necessity for extra power storage in the form of Hydrogen, and all the added expense of the related equipment. In fact, as you can see in the first solar home video below, it’s perfectly feasible to use only solar cells to power a whole house.

The last video below, is an insight into how Nanosolar are progressing with their new solar cell technology. The domestic market is not really hinted at, but as all things, the real money is with industry, and large projects. I think it will take some time for this new technology to percolate down to the domestic consumer, but that market cannot be ignored, and certainly, as the old silicon technology expires into the annals of solar power history, which, I think, will not be in the too distant future, we, the guys at the bottom of the user chain, will be swamped with this new, or by then, newish technology. It is a bit irking that us, the reliable, faithful, (depending on who has the best deal), domestic consumer, is usually at the bottom of the technology user chain. On the bright side, it’s possible that in not so many years, or less, many of us will have affordable, totally sun powered homes

So there you are, and as I’ve touched on in a previous post, the solar cell future is a very bright future indeed.