While frugal living is never directly tied to living an eco-friendly life, you’ll always find yourself going green if you want to save some cash. So not only will you be saving a lot of money, you get to help save the planet as well regardless of whether or not you care for it; or whether or not you believe the planet is beyond saving. At any rate, you’ll want to reduce your electric bills; and one of the best ways to do this is to get either a wind turbine or a solar panel to supply your home with electricity. Now, unless you are living in a place where you enjoy constant breeze, then you will need to go with solar power instead. First, let’s get the myths out of the way.
Sole-ar Power Myth
You may have read countless articles that say if you can build a good solar panel, you won’t need your electric company anymore. This is half-true. You can NEVER run your home on solar power alone unless you have a lot of solar panels. Ever wonder why solar cars never made it into mass production and instead became limited only in college demonstrations? For one, they don’t come cheap. Second, solar power is just not enough. It can, however, give you a ton of savings in your electric bills if you look at it in long terms.
Now we move on to how you create your solar panels. Here are a few things you’re going to need:
Solar Cells or Panels
Solar cells have a peak electrical power, and the cost depends on that. A typical solar cell would cost somewhere between two to five dollars, and will produce one watt. A fifty-watt panel will cost you from a hundred to two-fifty bucks; even more if you buy them whole. Start out small and add more panels if you have the time to work on them.
Battery
In case you didn’t know, solar energy isn’t about capturing sunlight and instantly turning it into electricity. You’ll store it in a battery, which you can then use as an alternative to your usual power source. It’s important that you keep the battery voltage and number of solar cells in mind. You don’t want to wind up not having enough cells to charge a battery.
As for the others:
Soldering iron
Plywood
Plexiglas
Flux pen
Tabbing Wire
Hooking Up Cells
Cells will have vertical strips in front of them, with corresponding little squares in the back. On the first cell, apply the flux pen on the vertical strips, and solder the tabbing wire to them – that’s your positive. On the next cell, apply the flux pen on the little squares on the back, and solder the tabbing wires to them – that’s your negative. Alternating the cells is pretty much it.
Framing the Cells
Attach the cells to plywood and bore two holes for the two tabbing wires to go through. Cover the plank with Plexiglas and secure with silicon and screws. Make sure the panel is impenetrable to moisture. If you want to defeat the purpose of the whole thing and bring in your solar panels every time it might rain, then you can skip the whole waterproofing process.
That’s the gist of it. All you have to do next is to hook up the wires you have to a battery, and let the cells soak up some sun. Once charged, you can run electrical appliances off of the battery. If you want to, you can do it slow and make one solar power system at a time. Pretty soon, you’re going to have most of your appliances running off of stored power from the sun; turning your home into one of the better homes in your neighborhood. Well, a home that may look like a car graveyard, but at least you’re taking your frugality to the next level and saving a lot of money in the process.
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