Renewable Energy Sources – can we make the change?

Renewable Energy Sources can we make the change

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Unlike fossil fuels like heating oil, gas and electricity generated from burning coal, renewable energies do not run out.

It therefore makes perfect sense to consider making any system changes sooner rather than later in order to reduce our carbon footprint, help save money and redress concerns that global warming and damage to the environment could be irrevocable.

Renewable energy sources are natural resources that include energy from sunlight, wind, water, geothermal heat, and energy from biomass (wood, waste, hydrogen gas, and alcohol fuels such as Ethanol).

In 2008, about 19% of energy consumption came from renewables, with 13% coming specifically from traditional biomass. These were mainly used for heating purposes and electricity generation.

A growth area now are so called new renewables' such as small scale hydro-electric schemes, modern biomass, wind, solar, geothermal, and bio-fuels. New schemes such as the UK Government's Feed in Tariff that pays people to produce renewable electricity have recently focussed more attention on using renewable energy sources. People can earn a fixed income for every kilowatt hour of electricity they generate and use in their property (The Generation Tariff) and earn an additional fixed income for every kilowatt hour of electricity they generate and sell back to the grid (The Export Tariff)

Globally, an estimated 3 million households get power from small solar PV systems.

Solar energy

Solar Hot water

Collecting the billions of kJ of energy received from the sun each day (solar energy) can be used to heat a fluid such as water in solar collector panels. These are predominantly flat collector panels that are fixed onto buildings' south-facing roofs or walls with transparent covers to admit sunlight.

Black channels or pipes inside the panels readily absorb the heat and transfer this to the water circulating around these internal workings; the hot water is then pumped to a heat exchanger that extracts the heat for use within the house. Solar Thermal Panels can produce up to 60% of hot water requirements.

Solar PV

Solar energy can generate electricity by converting the sun's radiation into electricity using specialised cells made up into photovoltaic (PV) panels. Generating solar electricity is dependent on light intensity and not on heat or direct sunlight, so it works even on overcast days, all year round.

Today's PV devices convert 7%-17% of light energy into electric energy and this is set to increase as new systems are developed and brought to market.

Benefits of Solar Energy Technology

Sunlight is free and helps to reduce the costs involved in hot water and electricity production.

Throughout the year, solar panels can provide up to 60% of a property's Domestic Hot Water (DHW) requirements.

Domestic hot water produced from solar panels can be easily integrated into under floor heating systems.

For more information on go to www.wholebuild.co.uk

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