Real Estate, Finance and Home Articles of Interest

Electricity bills have been constantly rising for a long time but it has now got to the level where power is playing a major factor in the household budget. The increasing cost of electricity combined with the environmental problems created by burning fossil fuels, is driving more people to think green and think about the possibility of building their own renewable power supply.

Constructing your own solar panels or a wind turbine is very tempting but how realistic is it? Can a self build solar panel or home made wind turbine really make a real change to a normal household power bill? Or are they just fanciful dreams and urban myths?

There are several variables that impact the answers to these questions. The answer will depend on where your house is located and how far you wish to go with your DIY power station.

One of the primary factors that impacts the viability of home made solar panels will be the exposure that your house has to the sun. It is easy to see that a hut deep in the heart of a forest is not going to gain much from a solar panel! So check how the sun moves over your house, how many hours of direct sun does your house get? The good news is that most homes should not have any trouble in collecting enough solar power to create electricity from a home made solar panel.

The same logic is true when thinking about a home made wind turbine; you will need wind to turn it! In most places the wind cannot be trusted as the only source of power--it simply fills in the spaces left by solar power quite nicely. Luckily when the sun stops shining the wind normally blows.

The quantity of power that can be created from a DIY power set up will be a product of the size and type of the devices being used.

Solar panels which produce electricity are also known as 'photovoltaic cells' or 'solar pv modules' The amount of electricity that you can expect to achieve from a solar panel is calculated by surface size and weight and typically will fall between 5 and 50 watts, although many cells can be simply linked together. Any excess electricity that is created can be stored in batteries for release at a later time.

The energy that comes from a DIY wind turbine is related to the square of the blade diameter (double the diameter and you get 4 times the power) and the cube of the wind speed (double the wind speed and you get 8 times the power). Although you can't order the wind speed, you can choose the blade diameter. Normal domestic wind turbines will have a diameter of around 6-8 feet and a typical domestic electrical system would be capable of generating 1 - 6 kilowatts with a wind speed of about 6-10miles per hour.

A home renewable energy power station consisting of a home made wind turbine and solar panel is not only possible but very practical. With a bit of research it is possible to find plans for building DIY wind turbines and solar panels and these do not demand any great degree of skill or unusual tools. In fact, all of the components are easily obtained from local sources and the whole construction stage shouldn't take more than a couple of weekends.

Can a DIY domestic power station save you money, yes it certainly can. Either you can feed electric items in your house directly from the free renewable electricity, or if you are able to link your home built power system to the power grid then you can sell your electricity to your power company.

Home power generation is not only a reality; it is an easy way to reduce your power bills. Who knows, maybe all homes will have a renewable energy source in the future.

Visit www.my-ecopower.com and check out the plans that I used to construct my own low cost, easy to build domestic power station.