Solar Panels: A Bright Idea And Cool Tax Perks

Get possible electric bill cutbacks very soon. More and more homeowners are utilizing solar energy in order to save themselves some money. Not only is it an ecologically friendly option, it could also possibly save you a lot. Tax refunds, freedom from sales tax on solar panel-related equipment and more: Picture that. What is not to like?

For the previous five years, the federal government has been trying to give out rewards for more responsible energy use. The Energy Policy Act in 2005 was the first tax break of its type. People who opted for renewable energy were awarded it. If you've been a house owner long enough, you'll realize that some big modifications have gone into effect, as there used to be very few rewards for house owners to make the switch to renewable energy.

Homeowners can receive a tax credit as high as $2000 or 30% of whatever they invested in buying solar panels because of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 alone. It was expanded back in 2008 to cover nearly every home in the United States that mainly makes use of solar energy, even though it originally only benefited homes existing from 2005-2007. This consists of houses constructed through January 2009.

Further to this act, in 2008 the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act was approved. Use of solar energy, including solar panels, now provides even more tax incentives. Though it expands the Energy Policy Act of 2005, it also adds more credit for those who plan to do home improvements in 2009 or beyond. This bill takes out the $2000 tax credit maximum in favor of the 30% rebate on investments in solar energy. Retroactivity in certain situations is also one of its features.

The state level may also extend tax incentives for setting up solar panels. New Mexico, Florida, Vermont, Minnesota, Washington, New York, Texas, Virginia, Arizona and California are some of these states. Tax rebates and the drop or elimination of sales tax on solar panel equipment expenses are some state perks that exist. It is certainly worth considering, if you're thinking of going the environmentally friendly route. Professionals can install solar panels or you can purchase a do-it-yourself kit. The tax incentives are well worth the shift either way.

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Save Your Money/Energy With Solar Panels!

In troubled times like these when saving money can be essential to keep your head above the water, a long-term solution for a French property has revealed itself to be successful: solar panels. With greenhouse effect campaigns, it is worth introducing green technology to save money as well as energy.

There are two sorts of solar panels:

-> Photovoltaic solar panels

It produces renewable solar electricity for either stand alone or grid feed systems. These tools are easily connected making them ideal for battery charging, camping and remote power applications. The photovoltaic may be connected in strings for higher voltage. If you invest in your home and your energy future with on-grid connected PV solar panels, their typical life span is of 30-40 years. But solar panels in general have never made much financial sense as their purchase is very pricey.

-> Solar Water Heating

Unlike PV solar panels, solar water panels are far cheaper. Furthermore, they look discreet (as you can see on the photo opposite). These panels heat domestic water; they are reliable and provide unrivalled performance. For the average household, a 2sqm solar panel is sufficient to produce domestic hot water for the majority of the year. For hot tubs and swimming pools, larger or multiple solar panels systems can be used for larger cylinders. A solar panel's installation is like converting a car into a hybrid. After the initial investment, your car or in this case your home will run efficiently and cheaply for the next 30 years.

Cost comparison: taking into account that a given house has electricity, is equipped with an oil heating system and a wood-burning stove:

Price* without solar panels: ?1,100 per year

Price* with solar panels: ?472 per year

-> Cost of installation

It is by no means expensive contrary to what we use to hear everywhere. Depending on the brand of panels, a couple of solar water panels could cost between £4,300 and £5,000 (between ?5,000 and ?6,000). You should receive a grant of around ?1,000 and ?2,200 in the form of credit d'impots

*. It's similar to a heat pump: the installation cost is about ?13,000 but you are granted ?4,000 of credit d'impots, meaning it'll really cost you ?9,000.

Energy-efficient systems still need to be improved in terms of their characteristics and efficiency but are definitely opening a new era for energy saving and the development of green properties.

*Depending on the conditions of the company you buy your solar panels from.

Sextant French property is a network of more than 160 estate agents and 50 developers in France offering a selection of 12,000 French property for sale.

They also offer French property investment such as French Leaseback properties

In order to improve their service to their customers they set up a French mortgages division who can also help customers who bought through a different French estate agent.

Why We Need Solar Systems As Standard Home Options

Solar photovoltaic and solar thermal systems are gaining in popularity, especially in the South West United States where, according to SolarBuzz.Com, growth rates for new solar system installations by 2014 will increase by as much as 10 times that of the market size in 2009. One would think that with such phenomenal growth rates, more home manufacturers, factor built builders especially, would add solar pv and solar thermal systems as standard options.

So why don't more manufacturers do this since the solar market seems to be taking off? The answer lies primarily in the development cost of associated with providing new options of any kind to consumers. Developing new home options that require complex engineering plans and designs is not cheap. A home builder that want to add energy efficiency options in to the mix of what they offer consumers can look at having to bankroll a development project for years before they may see any real return on investment. This, primarily, is the reason most installations of solar systems happen on existing homes and not be developers themselves.

Some home builders do offer these systems as options but, quite frankly, these companies are few and far between. We project that as the industry continues to increase in terms of demand, more home builders in the South West will look to add these options in to their regular product offerings to not only meet consumer demand, but also as a new profit center. Why should these systems be offered only after market?

California comprises almost 50% of all new solar system installations annually. Even though the housing market may be in a downward spiral, new home sales, especially in the manufactured home market, are doing well due mostly to the reduced overall cost as compared to site built homes. While consumers may turn to the factory built variety of homes to save their hard earned dollars, they still want high end options available to them.

Cost savings is one of the driving forces that makes consumers want to invest in solar systems. I predict that home builders that offer homes in the South West United States will begin offering more options to meet people's needs in the solar arena, not because its good to do so necessarily, but more so because of demand and the ability to create a new profit center within existing businesses. Energy efficient home options that include PV and solar thermal systems should be standard options in the near future.

Passive Solar Techniques - The Trombe Wall

Mention solar technology and most people automatically assume that solar panels are involved in one way or another. While this is generally true, the concept of passive solar energy has been used from thousands of years to heat structures. The trombe wall is one form of low tech used in passive solar for heating a home at night.

The trombe wall is named after Felix Trombe, a French inventor who created the modern version in the 1950s. The basic idea behind the wall is the manipulation of thermal storage and heat release. Put in simpler terms, the wall is used to capture and hold heat during the day and release it in the evening. In doing so, the wall becomes a repository for heat much like the pavement on a parking lot during the day.

To understand how the trombe wall functions, it helps to first contemplate how passive solar energy works as a heating process. A simple example suffices. Imagine you drive to the grocery store. You park in the parking lot and head inside. You are there for no more than 30 minutes. When you come out to the car, what has happened? It has turned into an oven! This is passive solar at its finest. The sunlifht has heated up every dark surface in the interior of the car, which then radiates heat. During the summer, sitting down on the seats can be a delicate maneuver, particularly if you are in shorts!

What if you could capture this heat during the hottest periods of the day and slowly release it at night when temperatures drop? This is exactly what the trombe wall is designed to do. The average trombe wall is between 8 and 16 inches thick. It is typically made of concrete. On the exterior face, the wall is covered with a heat absorbing material. This can be a painted on dark color or absorbent material. A double layer of glass is then placed about an inch outside of this and forms the exterior of the structure. It looks a little odd to have a wall inside of glass, but the heating impact is significant.

As sunlight penetrates the glass, it heats up the surface of the concrete wall. The wall then absorbs the heat at a rate of about an inch an hour. By the end of a sunny day, you have a concrete wall that is heated up much like the rocks in a sauna, although obviously not as hot. The double glass serves to insulate one side of the wall. Once the temperature in the area starts to cool below the heat level of the trombe wall, it will start to emit heat. The heat rises. Vents and small fans can be put in to circulate the warm air into the interior of the home where it can be funneled to rooms in use. This can be done day-after-day so long as the sun hits the wall.

Solar power is a complex energy platform and involves much broader techniques then just solar panels or water heaters. Passive solar can be a powerful way to deal with heating issues and the trombe wall is one example of this.

Home Systems: Active Vs Passive Solar Heating Systems

Are you interested in using a solar heating system? If so, then you will have several options. One of the main ones is whether to choose an active or passive system.

What are Active Solar Heating Systems?

This type of system involves harnessing and storing (in the form of heat) solar energy. It uses fans and other objects to dispense heat that has been harnessed. Solar cells constructed of silicon are the most common type of solar heat collectors. Typically, the cells are contained on solar panels, which are located on the roof of a home.

What are its main types?

There are two primary types. Their difference lies in the material that captures and moves the heat that is located in the solar collector. Usually the material is a gas or a liquid. For instance, an air-based system usually involves transpired air collectors or air room heaters. On the other hand, liquid-based systems usually involve water (or antifreeze) to capture and move heat.

How much power does it provide?

Usually the goal of such systems is to heat up to three-fourths of a home's interior. When more solar energy than a house needs is produced, the homeowner could then sell excess power back to his or her local utility company. Also, it is advisable to heat both the air and water in your home, so your system can function throughout the entire year.

What Are Passive Solar Heating Systems?

This type of system is a low-technology method of capturing solar energy. It functions by directly capturing the sun's warmth, and then retaining it within the house for the function of heating. This is mainly achieved through methods such as quality insulation and windows. This type of system can lower your current heating costs, or even replace your home's current system.

What are its components?

Windows are the primary components of such systems. The goal is to maximize the amount of sunlight and heat that one can collect during the daytime. Typically, the windows consist of a special variety of glass that absorbs as much heat as possible-and then keeps it indoors for a maximum amount of time.

Besides windows, another common component of Passive Solar Heating Systems are trombes, which are a special type of wall. There is a pane of glass in front of the wall. The mission is for the space between the glass and wall to collect heat. Another method is to paint the concrete walls black, so they will absorb sunlight more.

What are its benefits?

This is generally an ideal option when you are looking for a solar heating system for a new home. The reason is that Passive Solar Heating systems are based on factors such as the location of the windows in the home, the location of the building itself, the amount of insulation in the building, and so on. These issues can be quite challenging to change within existing homes-and especially the location of the home!

After learning the basics of Active and Passive Solar Heating Systems, it is time to determine which one is best for you.

Solar parking lots: the next big thing in investing commercial property

With most manufacturers of cars set to bring electric vehicles (EVS) for the world market in 2011 in the production of mass for the modern consumer, warned property investors are already position themselves whopping returns. Not there is a long time, electric cars, pricing systems used to be a far-fetched vision of the future, but it is now a reality. It is estimated that there will be about 1.5 million EVs on the street of the United Kingdom by 2020. Clearly, it is a challenge minute to replace fuel fired around 27 million cars. Nevertheless, the growing demand for EVs spells huge profits for providers of recharging stations.

Sophisticated property and other investors within the investors are in pole position to operate this car quick and electricity revolution, particularly in the solar energy sector. In addition, the funds of pension, capital and major institutional investors are tail to add lucrative property assets, such as the solar car parks to their portfolio. If you got some species, it would be wise to forget the stock market, ISAs, buy to let and love it and turn on your goal of investment solar-car parks or power-Park-Verrières: the next big thing in real estate investment.

Where there are parking lots, electricity solar systems can be erected to charge electric vehicles at a small price, giving it stable and consistent owner cash flow. Today, supermarkets get in the action by converting their fleets of parking in parking lot of electricity solar hubs. Soon, airports, hospitals, shopping malls etc follow. According to one source, Asda intends to roll out solar parking of all his supermarket for the next five years.

Unlike the other rental parking today, solar active classes yields are estimated to be on average between 8% and 10,5% per month. Solar car parks are already booming property assets in countries like the USA, the France and the Japan. It is expected that in the next 3-4 years, parks of power become active gold mine property to the United Kingdom. Thus, you cannot afford to not miss this opportunity.

Moreover, with prices beginning to cost of £ 120,000, a Government of 25 years and 80% guaranteed loan performance, the possibility of investment is very solid. The regime feed in tariff was launched by the Government of the United Kingdom in April 2010, which guarantees the owners of green energy projects income from rental of a minimum of £ 900 for 25 years.

For more details on opportunities to invest in car parks solar E-mail now.