Let’s go solar!
With the advancements in technology as compared to several years ago, rooftop solar panels are now installed grid-tied, with solar panel systems connected to the grid via a bi-directional electricity meter
Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray’s winning answer “to see situations with a silver lining” teaches us how to take something positive out of the not-so-good things that are happening around us. This means that, despite all the negativities that we encounter in life, we must always stay positive and bring about the necessary actions and solutions to rise above all our problems and challenges.
I realized that despite the total discomfort and health risks that the scorching heat that we experience nowadays, we still can pick up something advantageous from this. On our way back to San Fernando from Angeles, I saw piles of solar panels inside what is known as a solar farm.
According to renewableenergyworld.com, “solar farms are large-scale solar installations where photovoltaic (PV) panels, referred to as solar panels or other means of collecting solar energy like concentrating solar systems, are used to harvest the sun’s power. They’re different than rooftop solar systems and even commercial solar power systems in a number of important ways. Solar farms are also known as solar parks and solar power stations. They operate as power plants, just like a natural gas power plant or other sources of energy generation that have generated electricity for consumers for the last century.”
There are two types of solar farms based on the capacity they provide: these are utility-scale solar farms with a capacity of anywhere between 1 MW to 2,000 MW which serve the utility company and all of its customers as part of the energy mix it carries on its power lines, and community solar farms with under 5 MW in size which serve subscribers or members who have paid for a share of its power.
Another increasingly popular demand nowadays is the installation of solar panels for households that can save up to 100 percent of previous electricity consumption. We all know that with the sudden upsurge of electricity charges, prompting us to consider energy-saving measures, the utilization of solar energy in our own homes indeed is an option that we need to consider. I saw a post of one Facebook friend in which she is happy to share that their current monthly electricity bill is P0.00 because of the solar panels installed in their roof.
Compared to solar farms, rooftop solar panels are small with capacities in the megawatt range, hence being a form of distributed generation. Most rooftop PV stations are Grid-connected photovoltaic power systems. Rooftop PV systems on residential buildings typically feature a capacity of about 5–20 kilowatts (kW), while those mounted on commercial buildings often reach 100 kilowatts to 1 Megawatt (MW). Very large roofs can house industrial-scale PV systems in the range of 1–10 Megawatts.
With the advancements in technology as compared to several years ago, rooftop solar panels are now installed grid-tied, with solar panel systems connected to the grid via a bi-directional electricity meter. It measures the excess power sent to the grid when the solar panels produce more than needed, and the amount of energy pulled from the grid when the solar panel system doesn’t generate enough.
With more and more local companies offering household solar panel systems, it’s definitely a good investment to go solar and help contribute to conserving energy and electricity generation.
We all know that with the sudden upsurge of electricity charges, prompting us to consider energy-saving measures, the utilization of solar energy in our own homes indeed is an option that we need to consider