Green computing. Why should you care?

[reddevilggg]

Yes, you mean £36.00

Yes, ............doh!

[Geek-9pm]

Here in the USA green means $ not  £

[Salmon Trout]

So you'd get around 10 grand back when you sell.

Correction: 11 grand on a 2.2 kW installation.

[mroilfield]

these pc's are refurbished and sent out to a charity with workers from britain , america and elsewhere they also have people who volenteer to go out twice a year for 2 or 3 weeks to fix any pc's that are not working. there are also doctors , teachers , engineers , etc go out as well.

my niece from canada goes out for 3 months every year into the poor villages to help them

That still did answer the question of what happens to the PC once it dies and can't be fixed. Do these volunteers bring it back home with them to dispose of properly? I highly doubt they do and there are a few reasons for that.

1. Cost - I doubt these people want to pay the cost to ship these back and then pay the cost to dispose of them.
2. Customs - In some African countries it can take any where from 6 to 9 months to get items cleared thru customs so they can be shipped back. Of course this is if you do things the legal way. I can support this time frame as I currently work in supply chain for a major offshore drilling contractor and am based in Angola but also get involved in our operations in Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, and any where else along the West coast of Africa that we have operations going.

[mroilfield]

Every kilowatt hour of power from a photovoltaic solar panel installation adds £5,000 to the resale value of a home. So you'd get around 10 grand back when you sell. And leccy prices are only likely to go one way... up.

Where did you get this statistic from? The value that would be added to the resale value of your home is going to be totally dependent on the person buying your home. If you sale it to some one that is into solar power great they will love it but if you try to sale it some one that could care less all they are going to see is the extra maintenance cost associated with the solar power system so they aren't going to want it.

How much would the maintenance cost be for a system like you are talking about? This is something that no one ever bothers to mention as people like to make it sound like you just install the system and forget it but you can't do that or it won't belong before you find yourself with a really ugly roof ornament that cost you £12k

[rthompson80819]

2. Customs - In some African countries it can take any where from 6 to 9 months to get items cleared thru customs so they can be shipped back. Of course this is if you do things the legal way.

Off the main topic, but this statement brings back memories of years ago when I did some work in and around Mexico City.  I frequently had to ship, and receive, materials from the US.  Normal time to clear customs was 6 to 8 weeks, but for a few dollars, it cleared in a day.

[Salmon Trout]

Where did you get this statistic from?

Admittedly that sort of figure is what you hear from solar energy companies, but it is fairly well known that solar panels, whether PV or thermal, do add value to a house.

The value that would be added to the resale value of your home is going to be totally dependent on the person buying your home. If you sale it to some one that is into solar power great they will love it but if you try to sale it some one that could care less all they are going to see is the extra maintenance cost associated with the solar power system so they aren't going to want it.

There isn't really any maintenance cost. You fit the panels, wire them to the inverter, which you wire to a meter connected to the electricity grid, and that's it. There are no moving parts and the system should last 30 years at least, accelerated aging tests have shown. You seem to think that solar energy is some kind of minority thing, but surveys have shown that many people think of it as raising the value of a property, especially in the US.

How much would the maintenance cost be for a system like you are talking about? This is something that no one ever bothers to mention as people like to make it sound like you just install the system and forget it but you can't do that or it won't belong before you find yourself with a really ugly roof ornament that cost you £12k

See above. Nobody bothers to mention it because you do just install the system and forget about it. Well, you don't forget about it really because you see the huge savings on your bills.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics

[mroilfield]

There isn't really any maintenance cost. You fit the panels, wire them to the inverter, which you wire to a meter connected to the electricity grid, and that's it.

See above. Nobody bothers to mention it because you do just install the system and forget about it. Well, you don't forget about it really because you see the huge savings on your bills.

For solar energy to be cost effective you would have to be able to take advantage of it any time you need electricity. Now if you just wire in the panels to the inverter and then into the meter you would only get a benefit on sunny days and if you used more electricity then you were producing you would still have to rely on the power company. Sure this would probably reduce your bill a little bit but so would turning off electrical items that aren't being used at the time.

If you really want to make it cost effective you need to have a battery system in place that can store the energy you are making so it will be available at night and on days when the sun isn't brightly shining. These battery systems do require maintenance.

If you did just wire the panels in and not worry about actually storing any electricity they will still require maintenance. You have to keep them clean as the dirtier they get the less sun light actually gets thru to the cells. To get continuous optimal performance out of them they need to be adjusted to different angles at different times of the year due to the position of the sun. Now I am sure you can climb on your roof and clean them yourself and maybe even adjust them but how many people would be willing to do that as I am sure the company that you buy them from will offer to do all this for you for a small fee.

Now don't get me wrong I am not against solar energy and would love to see it used more often but I really hate to hear people talk about how easy and simple it is use but never mention the work that is involved and the other hidden cost that goes along with it.

This bring to mind my next questions.

How many solar panels do you have on your house and how much has it saved you during the year?

[Salmon Trout]

For solar energy to be cost effective you would have to be able to take advantage of it any time you need electricity. Now if you just wire in the panels to the inverter and then into the meter you would only get a benefit on sunny days and if you used more electricity then you were producing you would still have to rely on the power company. Sure this would probably reduce your bill a little bit but so would turning off electrical items that aren't being used at the time.
How many solar panels do you have on your house and how much has it saved you during the year?

Photovoltaics generate more power when the sun is shining strongly than when the sky is cloudy or overcast, sure, but even on dull days they do produce some output. It rains enough here that dust or dirt deposits are not a problem. Where I live they are subsidized by the government. If your PV installation qualifies for the "Feed-in" tariff then you are paid (at the moment) £0.41 per kWH produced. This will be paid even if you use the energy yourself. The cost of importing grid power is around £0.12 per kWH. So that is why a 2 kW installation would save/pay you £900 per year. The feed-in rate is tied to the stadard rate so the return will rise if electricity prices rise. The inverter is connected to the electricity company's cables coming into the house via a bi-directional meter so while you are at work or on vacation all of the power you generate is exported and measured.

My employer's new office building has PVs and also a solar water heating system and the power bills are around 20%-30% of the old building of a similar floor area.

[MacRoda]

This bring to mind all the people that want to use either hybrid or totally electric cars. Yes if we switch to electric cars we won't be using fossil fuels in them as much but on the other hand you have to stop and think about where all the electricity is going to come from to power these cars?

Hydro electric power isn't sufficient enough as the availability to hydro electric power is no where near what it needs to be.

Most people complain when they see big windmills being put up as they either mess up the view that no one noticed until the windmill was put there or they are a hazard to birds.

Just mention putting a nuclear power plant any where with in 1,000 miles of a city and watch how many people complain or threaten to sue some one.

Solar energy just isn't feasible for a multitude of reason. If it was feasible right now there would already be totally electric cars that run off of nothing but solar enegery

That just leaves us with good ole fossil fuels. So go ahead and have every one drive an electric car that way we can pump all the fossil fuels we were using into the additional power plants that we will need to have.

Green ways of generating power has become lot popular in recent times..Even I have been using solar energy for charging my phone battery..

[Geek-9pm]

Hydroelectric power provides almost one-fifth of the world's electricity. China, Canada, Brazil, the United States, and Russia were the five largest producers of hydropower in 2004. One of the world's largest hydro plants is at Three Gorges on China's Yangtze River. The reservoir for this facility started filling in 2003...
...
The biggest hydro plant in the United States is located at the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in northern Washington. More than 70 percent of the electricity made in Washington State is produced by hydroelectric facilities.

Hydropower is the cheapest way to generate electricity today. That's because once a dam has been built and the equipment installed, the energy source—flowing water—is free. It's a clean fuel source that is renewable yearly by snow and rainfall.
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/hydropower-profile/

[MacRoda]

Green ways solar panels of generating power has become lot popular in recent times..Even I have been using solar energy for charging my phone battery..

Anybody else using solar power for charging..