Renew­able ener­gy is ener­gy that is replen­ished and does not deplete.  One type of renew­able ener­gy is solar.  Solar ener­gy is when elec­tric­i­ty is made from the sun’s ener­gy.  The sun releas­es pho­tons which are par­ti­cles rep­re­sent­ing a quan­tum of light. Pho­tons trav­el 93 mil­lion miles from the sun to the earth in about 8.5 min­utes. The pho­tons then hit a solar cell and elec­trons are knocked loose from their atoms.  Con­duc­tors are attached to the pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive side of a solar cell and it forms an elec­tri­cal cir­cuit. Elec­trons then flow through the cir­cuit and gen­er­ates elec­tric­i­ty.  The more solar pan­els used, the more ener­gy you will generate.

To know how many solar pan­els you will need, you will need to know your ener­gy con­sump­tion.  You will need to know your kilo­watt hours (kWh) used per month. This num­ber is on your util­i­ty bill as “kWh used”. To get your month­ly aver­age you’ll need to look at bills for the past year, add up the stat­ed kWh’s used and divide by 12. This gives you your month­ly aver­age.  Next, divide your month­ly kWh aver­age by 30 to cal­cu­late your dai­ly aver­age. For instance, if your aver­age month­ly kWh is 1200, then your aver­age dai­ly kWh is 40. A solar pan­el pro­duces about 1 kWh per day. If your dai­ly usage is 40 kWh, you would need 40 solar pan­els to gen­er­ate 100 per­cent of your ener­gy needs. One solar pan­el s 5 ½ feet tall by 3 feet wide, so the size of your roof is also a fac­tor to consider.

Instal­la­tion com­ple­tion depends on how many pan­els you install and how com­pli­cat­ed the instal­la­tion is.  The IRS cur­rent­ly is offer­ing a 26% tax cred­it on instal­la­tion costs.Triple “S” Ener­gy is part­nered with a local Solar Ener­gy com­pa­ny to help with your solar needs.