photo credit: lrargerichIf you have been studying home solar power, how to build your own solar panel system, or investigating DIY solar panel kits, one of the things that you will run up against time and again is determining how much solar and wind power you actually have to work with in order to power whatever it is that you desire. Whether you want to live off grid, use solar power just for your refrigerator or apartment, or get your home or business running on solar panel power, knowing how much solar and wind power is available in your area is crucial.
Why is this crucial do you ask? Well, unless you live in Arizona or California, there is that small chance that you might not be able to get as much solar or wind power as you need to generate the electricity you desire.
So, how DO you determine if you have enough sun or wind power for your electricity needs?
One of the things that you would find extremely useful, is a solar power calculator. One such calculator is produced by the US Department of Energy, and is called the IMBY tool. IMBY stands for “In My BackYard”.
When you click on this link, it will have you input your home address, including house number, street, city and state. I forgot the city and state the first time, and lo and behold, it couldn’t find me! When it did find me and zeroed in, I felt a little bit freaked out. But in a cool kinda way. Now, if it is not able to locate your exact residence, try your city and state. If you live in a pretty rural area, go to your next largest city, and so forth.
Once you have input this information, it will take you through step by step to see if you have enough solar and wind power in your area to warrant either purchasing solar panels, or working on your own DIY solar power kit from scratch.
Next up we will discuss how determine your actual solar power needs.
Until next time,
Let the sunshine in!
Lauren
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Helpful info on how to estimate how much solar power is available in our area.
Wow, great tip on finding out if solar is a good choice for my home. Thanks for the good info.
Thanks for the info! I’m off to play with the calculator now.
Thanks for checking it out! I hope you find it a useful tool!
Lauren
Even though I wasn’t on the map I did have a blast checking up on my family and friends. Thanks!
[...] how much sunshine you get in a day. I presented to you the solar power calculator in this post here, and hopefully that will give you a pretty good idea. I will be posting some other calculators as [...]