Alternative Home Energy

These days we are completely reliant on electricity to run our homes. Almost everything we do from cooking to washing dishes to cleaning our carpets relies on appliances powered by electricity. However there is growing discontent over the price we are paying for this resource.

Fortunately we humans are a pretty innovative lot! We’re good at finding ways around things. As the electricity we need becomes more and more expensive, we are finding alternative ways to generate it. While alternative home energy has been around for many years, it is only recently that it has become a household word, powered by necessity.

There are four main types of alternative home energy:

1 — Solar energy – This freely available energy is used mainly for heating. Solar panels concentrate the sun’s energy to produce electricity. Solar power is used to heat our houses, heat water and these days is also used to power our appliances. If you have a sufficient amount of solar panels you can create enough energy to power your entire house. Bear in mind however that the cost of solar panels is high.

The most exiting thing however is if the amount of electricity you generate is excess to the amount you need, you can sell it back to the electricity grid. Now that’s powerful stuff! Even more exciting is the fact that you can build your own solar panels using everyday tools to do this.

2 — Hydropower – This type of alternative home energy has been around since historical times. Water powered mills were used in the mills that ground grain for flour. Nowadays we use hydro power to generate electricity in big hydro-electric power stations. The force of water is taking over from burning coal to produce electricity where there are sufficient sources of water.

3 — Wind energy – Many homes use windmills or wind generators to harness electricity to augment their normal supply. The concept of using wind to generate energy is nothing new. Consider the windmills of Holland, once used to pump out water from their low lying country.

Large wind farms are now springing up in many countries. They are clean and quiet, however do use a sizeable amount of land. However this land may also be used for agriculture at the same time.

4 — Biogas or biodiesel – mainly being experimented with as an alternative source of fuel for diesel vehicles at the moment. Biodiesel is manufactured from vegetable oil. It is easy to manufacture and burns a lot cleaner than diesel.

Although the alternative home energy concept is new to our generation, it is well worth exploring and implementing. As I have mentioned before, solar panels may be constructed at home for a fraction of the cost of purchase. Wind generators may also be constructed at home following simple instructions.

There are many advantages to using alternative home energy. The two main ones are saving money and doing your bit to minimize the carbon footprint. Although it probably seems much easier to just go on using the normal electricity supply, it will just go on getting more and more expensive. So why not lead the way to a cheap, renewable source of energy for your home.