Solar Company in Phoenix | Arizona Solar Panel Installations

Installing an array on your roof is environmental exhibitionism—and it’s contagious.

“Oh, you should totally do it,” my neighbor said.

I was nursing a beer at his winter holiday party as he told me about the solar panels on his Brooklyn brownstone roof. They’d cut his electricity bill down so much that in a few years they’ll have paid for themselves, he told me. I had questions: Did it damage his roof? Were there any complications? Any regrets? Nope: If anything, he wished he’d put up a bigger array, to produce even more juice. “It’s great,” he gushed.

I went home, intrigued. I’d been thinking about putting an array on my roof for years, but something about my friend’s confidence pushed me over the edge. I called up Brooklyn Solarworks, a local firm, and their crew of electricians arrived and, with a chill, we-got-this vibe, installed a gorgeous, sleek set of panels. It’s a “canopy” setup, with the panels raised 9 feet above my roof on thick, shiny aluminum braces, crafted with such perfect welds it made my engineering-nerd heart swoon. My house is old, built in 1902, so the canopy lends it a vaguely William Gibsonian aesthetic: a ramshackle blend of vinyl siding, snaky wiring, and dark promise. You can see the panels from a block away; they attract attention.

Click here to view the entire article on WIRED.

CLIVE THOMPSON (@pomeranian99) is a WIRED contributing editor.

This article appears in the April issue.

AZ West Energy is your Solar Company in Phoenix

Looking for a Solar Company in Phoenix? AZ West Energy offers both Affordable and Efficient Solar at $0 Down. Your solar panel installations experts. We guarantee the Lowest Cost Per Watt in Arizona!  We will meet or beat any competitor’s proposal with the same brand, and we’ll rebate you $500.00 after the installation!

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (PRWEB) March 05, 2020

Actor, director, and producer Laurence Fishburne is lending his well-versed skillset as host to the program “In Depth”. The series is an informative TV show that highlights a wide array of topics impacting people around the globe. A new episode coming soon will feature industry professionals discussing the use of solar power in ordinary, everyday life.

Tech experts are harnessing solar power to replace the traditional methods used to fuel modern advances. In place of fossil fuels, solar energy can power homes, cars, and appliances. Plenty of advanced technologies use batteries as a power source. The average person needed to always have a charger in tow to recharge their phone, tablet, or computer later in the day. Now, developers are using solar energy as the power source for charging these devices. No matter where someone is, they can travel without the worry of having to stop to find a place to charge their phone.

Solar power also provides the ability to heat. Water heaters, space heaters, and washing machines are some of the appliances that can benefit from solar energy.

Solar power provides not only the means to simplify and streamline lives, but also makes a favorable impact on the planet by reducing the overall carbon footprint. “In Depth” will further explore how solar energy can aid everyday lives.

“In Depth” with Laurence Fishburne is a high-quality educational program. The development and creative team behind the program have accepted multiple Tellys for their efforts in television.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: https://www.prweb.com/releases/in_depth_with_laurence_fishburne_interviews_experts_about_the_use_of_solar_power_in_everyday_life/prweb16957825.htm

AZ West Energy is your Solar Company in Phoenix

Looking for a Solar Company in Phoenix? AZ West Energy offers both Affordable and Efficient Solar at $0 Down. Your solar panel installations experts. We guarantee the Lowest Cost Per Watt in Arizona!  We will meet or beat any competitor’s proposal with the same brand, and we’ll rebate you $500.00 after the installation!

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The future’s getting brighter for solar power. Researchers from CU Boulder have created a low-cost solar cell with one of the highest power-conversion efficiencies to date, by layering cells and using a unique combination of elements.

“We took a product that is responsible for a $30 billion a year industry and made it 30% better,” said Michael McGehee, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and co-author of a paper, to be published tomorrow in Science, which describes the technology. “That’s a big deal.”

The researchers took a perovskite solar cell, a crystal structure that’s designed to harvest higher energy photons, and layered it on top of a silicon solar cell, which captures more photons in the infrared part of the spectrum – which is made up of radiant energy that we cannot see, but we can feel as heat. Combined, the perovskite raises a 21% silicon solar cell up to an efficiency of 27% – increasing it by a third.

For years, silicon solar cells have been the standard in the solar power industry. But current silicon-based cells only convert 18% to 21% of the sun’s energy into usable electricity on average, and they max out at about 26.6%.

This means it now costs more to install the cells than to buy them, said McGehee, a fellow in the Renewable & Sustainable Energy Institute.

The average efficiency of solar panels is lower than the maximum efficiency, because no matter how good an individual, small solar cell is, it will lose about three percentage points when applied over a large panel – kind of like a sports team only being as good as its average player. But if you can raise the overall efficiency, you don’t have to install as many panels to get the same amount of power.

What dramatically improves efficiency is to put another solar cell on top of an existing one – and that’s exactly what McGehee and his fellow researchers did.

An affordable secret formula

This isn’t the first time researchers have layered solar cells to gain efficiency. The concept, also known as tandem or multi-junction solar cells, was first introduced in the 1970s – and the world record for solar cell efficiency is already over 45%. However, it came at a hefty price: $80,000 per square meter, due to the fact the cells were grown one atomic layer at a time, creating one big, single crystal. Probably not a cost the average homeowner or business can afford.

McGehee and his fellow researchers are the pioneers in a new direction of layered solar cells, using perovskites, which cost more than a hundred times less.

They started fewer than 10 years ago with the concept of using less expensive materials on top of the silicon, and at first only achieved about 13% efficiency. But through technological improvements they have been able to more than double that number.

Their secret formula involves a unique triple-halide alloy of chlorine, bromine, and iodine.

In solar cells, there is an ideal bandgap, according to McGehee. This is the space between energy levels in a semiconductor, which electrons jump between and create electrical energy.

Bromine can raise this bandgap, but when used with iodine and exposed to light, these elements don’t always stay in place. Previous studies have tried to use chlorine and iodine together, but due to the differing particle sizes of these elements, not enough chlorine could fit into the perovskite crystal structure. But by using different amounts of chlorine, bromine, and iodine, the researchers figured out a way to shrink the crystal structure, allowing more chlorine to fit in – stabilizing and improving the cell’s efficiency.

Perovskites are also inexpensive, not energy intensive to make and easy to create in the lab. And even after 1000 hours – or almost 42 days – of intensive light and heat testing, these new solar cells showed a minimal change in their initial efficiency.

With the solar power market growing around 30% per year, efficiency, cost and longevity are major considerations for which new technologies will become mainstream.

McGehee is optimistic about the potential of this wide-bandgap, layered perovskite solar cell.

Not only has it now surpassed the maximum efficiency of a silicon-only solar cell, “we believe it can take us over 30% efficiency and that it can be stable,” said McGehee.

Read Entire Article on SCIENMAG: https://scienmag.com/layered-solar-cell-technology-boosts-efficiency-affordability/

AZ West Energy is your Solar Company in Phoenix

Looking for a Solar Company in Phoenix? AZ West Energy offers both Affordable and Efficient Solar at $0 Down. Your solar panel installations experts. We guarantee the Lowest Cost Per Watt in Arizona!  We will meet or beat any competitor’s proposal with the same brand, and we’ll rebate you $500.00 after the installation!

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Solar Company in Phoenix | Arizona Solar Panel Installations

Not only can adding solar panels to a home save energy costs and help the environment, it also can potentially increase a home’s value.

During the past year, homes with solar-energy systems sold for 4.1% more on average than comparable homes without solar power. For the median-valued home, that translates to an additional $9,274.

The sale premium varies substantially by market. In Riverside, Calif., for example, homes with solar-energy systems sold for 2.7% more than comparable homes without solar power—a markup of $9,926 for the median-valued home in the metro. In the greater New York City metro, solar-powered homes have a premium that is double that of Riverside. At 5.4%, that’s an extra $23,989 in value for the typical home in New York.

In three other coastal metro areas—Los Angeles, San Francisco and Orlando, Fla.—homes with solar power can fetch a premium of around 4%.One reason houses with solar-energy systems sell for more than those without them is because they can provide substantial future energy cost savings. For homeowners who know they consume a lot of power, these future savings are worth spending a bit more money up front. It is also possible that homes with solar-energy systems are more likely to have other features that are hard to measure yet valuable, like heated floors, which could contribute to the premium associated with solar power.

Personal preferences play a role, too: More than 80% of home buyers say energy-efficient features are important, according to the Zillow Group Consumer Housing Trends Report.

Methodology

We calculated the solar premium by comparing homes with and without solar-energy systems that were listed for sale and sold from March 1, 2018 to February 28, 2019, controlling for observable attributes of the homes, including bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, age of the home and location.

By Sarah Mikhitarian on Apr. 16, 2019

Read Entire Article on Zillow: https://www.zillow.com/blog/get-serious-about-going-solar-186394/

AZ West Energy is your Solar Company in Phoenix

Looking for a Solar Company in Phoenix? AZ West Energy offers both Affordable and Efficient Solar at $0 Down. Your solar panel installations experts. We guarantee the Lowest Cost Per Watt in Arizona!  We will meet or beat any competitor’s proposal with the same brand, and we’ll rebate you $500.00 after the installation!

Looking for a Solar Company in Lake Havasu? Havasu Solar is Your Premier Solar Company in Lake Havasu City. Mohave County Solar Panel Installations.

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Get Serious About Going Solar



They’re more affordable than you think, and the benefits make them a bright idea.

The decision to add solar panels to your home can seem daunting. The unknowns and assumptions of costs and installation tend to leave homeowners uneasy about going solar.

However, just as home automation once seemed overwhelming, adding solar panels to your home is becoming more of the norm. More than 1 million U.S. homes installed solar panels in 2016, and the industry is projected to triple over the next five years, according to research by the Solar Energy Industries Association.

California already generates more than five percent of its “annual utility-scale electricity generation from utility-scale solar power,” becoming the first state to do so.

The reasons to invest in solar panels are abundant. In addition to increasing your home’s value and saving money on your electric bill, solar panels also help homeowners decrease their carbon footprint. Within 20 years, a residential solar power system can offset literally tons of carbon dioxide.

Addressing the myths

If you’re still skeptical, know that quite a few myths about going solar exist. Here are the most common myths about solar panels.

  • I could never afford solar panels. The average cost to cover a home’s roof with solar panels is $29,000, according to Tech Insider. Ten years ago it was $43,000. That makes the cost of a solar roof “lower than the average price of a new car” in the U.S. This doesn’t even account for renewable energy tax credits you may receive; you can claim a 30-percent rebate for installing solar panels to your home. There are even solar panel leasing program options if you don’t feel ready for such a purchase. This solar panel installation cost calculator will give you the estimated cost of the benefits of using solar power in your home, as well as your expected daily savings.
  • My solar panels won’t work if the weather is bad. False. Germany is the solar energy capital of the world, and often faces long, dismal winters. Solar panels run off of UV light, so a cloudy sky won’t turn off your power.
  • Solar panels will require too much maintenance. Solar panels do not require much maintenance at all, actually. While rain will often do the trick, the general recommendation is to clean your panels by hosing them off annually. Most of your maintenance work involves simply making sure there is no debris on your roof that may cover any part of your panels.

Can your home handle it?

If you’re ready to start thinking more seriously about going solar, your first step is to see if your home can handle solar panels. Surprisingly, approximately only 25 percent of roofs are suitable for solar panels.

Research the following questions as you consider solar panels:

  • What are the measurements of my roof?
  • What are the electrical and building codes in my area?
  • Does my neighborhood have any rules regarding solar panels?
  • Does my state have laws regarding solar access rights in place?

You’ll also want to find a contractor who is certified to work with photovoltaic (PV) systems. A professional can help you determine if your home is a good fit for solar panels. Before you commit to any service, though, find out how long your contractor has been in business, how many installations their team has completed, and what kind of insurance they have. Making sure the contractor is North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners certified is another must. And it’s completely acceptable to ask for a portfolio or a list of recent projects and references.

An alternative to panels

No worries if your home isn’t yet ideal for installing solar panels. Alternatives like solar shingles are also worth considering. Solar shingles are a cheaper option, and look much like tar and sand shingles, blending in with your roof more than solar panels.

Like solar panels, they work by capturing sunlight and transforming it into usable energy. They’re usually only one foot wide, and can be stapled directly to roofing cloth, just like normal shingles.

If you think your home may be a good candidate for solar panels or shingles, give it a shot. With little to lose and so much to gain — and a new solar panel going up every 150 seconds in the U.S. — 2017 may be your year to go solar.

BY SARAH PIKE ON 18 APR 2017

Read Entire Article on Zillow: https://www.zillow.com/blog/get-serious-about-going-solar-186394/

AZ West Energy is your Solar Company in Phoenix

Looking for a Solar Company in Phoenix? AZ West Energy offers both Affordable and Efficient Solar at $0 Down. Your solar panel installations experts.

Looking for a Solar Company in Lake Havasu? Havasu Solar is Your Premier Solar Company in Lake Havasu City. Mohave County Solar Panel Installations.

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