A Solar House in Florida

One of the questions I always hear starts off with, "I'm building a house, and I'd like to make it solar." The question, of course, is how much it will cost. And the answer is as complicated as the electrical needs which the person usually takes for granted.

An interesting thing to do is to take a day with your main breaker off, and write down everything you miss and can't do. Those things tell you your power requirements of your home. People typically don't want to hear that they have to plan for a home powered by renewable energy. They don't want to hear that they can't just flip a switch without thinking.

Well, here's one answer: Buy this house in Florida. $690,000 US. Solar powered. Rain water, well water. And if you really want to see what kind of thinking goes into a house powered by renewable energy, go to this page and scroll down to the table titled, 'Sizing Worksheet for Photovoltaic System' - better, read your way down to it. It's a brilliant example of the amount of planning that goes into it.

For me, you have to add about 127.2 Watts/hr to run a solar wireless system and a laptop - maybe less if you buy things with lower power requirements. So maybe you're wondering about how power requirements are found. It's pretty simple, really.

Current times Voltage = power. Amps x Volts = Watts.

And if an appliance uses a certain amount of Watts, and you leave it on for an hour - then you get Watt hours. So a 10 Watt widget left on for an hour would be rated at... 10 Watt/hours. But then, you have to factor in that renewable energy sources typically produce DC electricity as opposed to what most people are used to: alternating current.

I've been thinking about writing a primer for DC. I'm not sure if I should spend the time doing it.

Image at top is available here, and more photos I have taken related to solar energy can be found here.