A Beginners Guide to Solar Power

Solar power is certainly one of the most exciting and talked about technologies in the entire history of human civilization. It is potentially as important an invention as fire itself. For no cost whatsoever, humans can get access to limitless energy. Of course there has been talk about the potential of solar power using photovoltaic cells for a hundred years, but the growth in solar cells only started very slowly in the 1960’s and 70’s when new discoveries in material sciences enabled a significant cost reduction. The 1980’s were a decade of high expectations and low results as it seemingly proved much more difficult to get enough power out of solar to be of any practical use and costs remained too high compared to other technologies. However, the true decline in prices of solar started in the late 2000’s as China invested in massive solar factories combined with newer technologies finally brought about the mass scale that was needed to bring the prices down. For example prices declined by 30% between 1980 and 2009, but declined by another 70% between 2009 and 2019. This story tells one important thing, which is that solar prices are still declining and will probably continue to decline in the future. 

Another important revolution in the development of the solar industry has been the leasing model pioneered by companies such as SolarCity in America, which allows an individual to get a photovoltaic solar system on their roof for “free” as long as they promise to buy electricity from it for a set amount of time such as 20 years. These lending systems though may have a downside as they may potentially lock in homeowner to higher bill over time as solar prices decline further.

One huge downside of solar for the last 100 years has been the lack of solar availability at nighttime or cloudy weather, meaning that a household wanting to go completely off the grid would still need a backup source or generator to cover the gap. This problem too maybe solved in the near future as battery technology develops further and costs are declining too, due to the massive giga-factory being developed by Tesla in Nevada. So a complete solar system will involve not just panels but batteries as well. 

One potentially overlooked and less talked about aspect of solar is that any electricity generated by solar is in a form known as Direct Current aka DC, while Alternating Current (AC) is used by most electronics such as TVs and fridges. Essentially what this means is that since households are designed for AC, if they are getting solar power from photovoltaic cells they will need to convert the DC current to AC current. Doing this results in a small loss of energy. Potentially though in the future it is possible that if most electricity is generated locally, we may just switch to DC based devices or at least have good options for DC devices. Find the best Chicago Solar Contractor for your home!

For the beginner looking into solar power as a possible solution to their home energy needs, now is one of the best opportunities install a solar system on their roof. Even though costs of solar panels will continue to decline, the cost savings from having converted their home to a reliable solar system will in most cases be worth it, especially for those living in sunnier climates and when factoring in the myriad tax credits and benefits available to those buy solar.