Solar Power

The sun's energy can be used directly, to heat water, or indirectly, to produce electricity with photovoltaics. Solar-heated water can be used for bathing and other domestic uses, and can also be pumped through tubing in the floor or along baseboards to provide space heating. To produce a significant amount of electricity requires a substantial up front investment, but the system will pay for itself in time, and there is the benefit of producing your own clean electricity with the fuel delivered every day from 93 million miles away.

Solar Energy Topics: Authoritative, well-written materials covering all aspects of solar energy for domestic and commercial uses. There are both overviews as well as in depth, technical pages. Unique information to be found here include links to existing incentives programs (i.e. tax credits), and codes, ratings and standards for solar energy systems. From the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Network (EREN).
American Solar Energy Society: For those considering a solar power system, ASES organizes tours to over 800 American homes using solar energy. This site also features a Factbase of technical and general articles on solar energy, as well as abstracts and some full-text articles from some back issues of their bi-monthly magazine Solar Today.
MySolar: A very consumer-friendly European site with "wizards" to walk you through the process of determining what types of solar power will work best for your needs and location.
OffGriders Page: Personal Web pages of people living "off the grid" using solar power. See how they do it! From simple, low-cost systems to the high-end Maine Solar House.

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