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Green Your Electricity: Alternative And Renewable Energy
Posted on Dec 21, 2007 - 10:01 AM
By: Adam Beazley
Alternative energy or green energy is an environmentally friendly, renewable and non-polluting source of power. Alternative energy comes in many different shapes and forms such as solar power, wind power, tidal power, geothermal power, hydro-electric power, hydrogen power, biomass power, and wave power.
Although many of these alternative energy sources are clean and renewable once they are up in operation, many of them use dirty energy to manufacture and transport the devices to their final destination. However, this necessary evil allows us to have more and more clean energy being pumped back into the grid which brings us closer to a total crossover. This allows manufacturers of alternative energy devices to use alternative energy to power their production facilities.
Alternative Energy For The Home
A great way to offset your personal carbon footprint is by using alternative energy to power your home. There are many different alternative energies that can be utilized to supply electricity to your home, the most common are solar power and wind Power, however there are plenty more to be taken advantage. In addition, there are combination systems which incorporate a few different alternative energies into one complete system. These alternative energy systems are very cost effective in the long run, but are generally quite pricey up front. However, over the life span of the product you can expect to save allot of money and drastically reduce and/or eliminate your emissions.
In many states, home owners can actually sell excess electricity back to the utility companies in an arrangement called net metering. Net metering is essentially a storage method whereby home owners can put excess electricity back into the grid to use at a later time. If all of the excess electricity is not used, the utility company will generally be required to pay the home owner either retail or wholesale prices for that extra electricity. Each state and country have different rules and regulations regarding this type of excess energy production, so consult with your local authorities before designing an over sized alternative energy system for your home.
Even though alternative energies are a great and easy way to reduce and/or eliminate your carbon footprint, they should be the last step you take. The first step is always “efficiency”, meaning that certain steps must be taken to make the home more efficient, by reducing electrical loads, eliminating air exchange and heat loss and many other efficiency reduction methods. Then steps should be taken to conserve energy, this means changing certain habits to conserve more energy. Then and only then should alternative energies be put into place. By following these steps, the cost of the alternative energy system will be drastically reduced making it very feasible and worth doing. If the “efficiency” steps are not taken first, then the cost of an alternative energy system will be much more expensive making it not as feasible to implement.
With our current emission rates causing global warming and climate change, alternative energies will play a major role in saving our planet and ensuring a future for our children and grandchildren. Do your part, increase your homes efficiency, conserve and implement some sort of alternative energy.
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