Solar Energy

June 13, 2021

 When we were in our elementary days, we were taught about the solar system. That the solar system is made up of the Sun and all the smaller objects that move around it, that includes the planets. The sun is the largest object of the solar system and it is a very hot ball of hydrogen and helium gasses. It constantly changed the hydrogen in its core into helium. This process gives out huge amounts of radiation or energy. Us here on earth depends on this energy in the form of light and heat.

But it was not taught to us before that this energy from the sun can be saved in a container in a form of a battery and can provide electricity and can light some bulbs or even the whole household appliances.

Or maybe it was taught in school but I was not listening. Maybe for me at that time, this is not important. What is important is to pass the class so that I can proceed to the next level.

Or maybe it doesn’t concern me as I am not the one paying for our electricity bills. It was my parents who paid for our bills.

When I had my own house, the responsibility of paying the bills falls on me. While I still have a small family with lesser appliances, my electricity bills reached around Php 3,000.00 or around $62.00 monthly.

As the family grows, the electricity bills grows with it. As our monthly income increases, the household appliances keep on adding up. Hence, electricity bills have ballooned up to Php 8,000.00 or $165.00 every month.

I keep on telling my kids to put off lights and electric fans that are not used. But still the electricity bill did not take a big dip.

The company I am working with is into real estate developing and building construction. I am assigned in the payable section and it is my duty to check documents before payment is processed. And this is where I learned about solar panels. I saw invoices on solar panels that needs to be paid. I inquired with our purchaser what is this for and found out that these are being used to capture energy from the sun. These panels are designed to absorb the sun’s rays as a source of energy for generating electricity.

This got me interested and immediately research about it during my free time.

I checked through online sellers if these panels are affordable. Indeed, there were panels that were affordable. I bought 2 solar panels and used an old car battery to save the energy. These panels generate electricity for the outside lights that were always on overnight. Though the lights went off at dawn as the saved energy is fully consumed but we were asleep by then.

After a few months, I bought garden lights that are solar powered too. They have built in battery that saves energy from the sun during the day and give light when night time comes. They also don’t last the whole night but at least, while we are still awake, we can see the beauty it provides outside.

Ground garden lights.

Hanging garden lights.

My latest purchase was streetlights to light up my driveway. This too has a built in battery but this is different from the garden lights. This has a sensor that will detect motion. Once it detects any movement, it will light up. This gives us a fright when it was still newly installed as it lights up even if there was no one there. It turned out that it will detect any motion not just from people but also from animals. So when a frog moves which we were not able to see, it lights up.

When my husband arrives from his one year stint at the sea, he had full panels installed that will generate electricity for the whole house.

There are two ways to save on electricity bills for this. Either, purchase several big batteries where the energy will be saved and distribute it to different household appliance usage or apply for a Net Metering, which is what we opt to.

Net Metering Info

Net Metering allows customers of Distribution Utilities to install an on-site Renewable Energy to generate power for their own use. Any electricity generated by the system that is not consumed by the customers is automatically exported to the distribution utility grid. The distribution utility then gives peso credit for the exported electricity at half of Distribution Utilities’ retail rate. It will offset the bill hence lowering the monthly electric bill.

If the customer generated more electrical energy than is used from the utility electrical system, the customer will receive kilowatt credit which will be applied for the future bills.

The problem with Net Metering is it takes a long time to be implemented as there are several requirements and permits needed to comply, which we are still processing for almost a year now. I almost opted to use batteries but I already invested a lot on the Net Metering.

Another disadvantage of Net Metering is that if the Distribution Utilities has brownouts then I too will have brownout even if I have solar panels.

Does having solar panels good for the environment?

Generating electricity from solar panels produces no harmful emissions, which is why installing solar panels reduce air pollution, and the more people use solar power means less poisonous emissions from fossil fuels into our air. – Mr. Google

And that is another reason why I opted for solar panels. Let’s help clean our Mother Earth.

Go Solar… Help Mother Earth!

Thanks for dropping by.

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