Solar Power
Solar power is a proven technology. It gets used by a handful of ardent techies, and die hard off the gridders. However, as of today, the best that can be said for most home solar installation is that it keeps a few lights on in the house. You can, of course buy the expensive an AC 'INVERTER' and run a few motorized appliances, but there it is, the inverters are very expensive and a maintenance issue.
If solar is to ever get into the main stream the appliance engineers must take a lesson from history. That is, When Edison first invented the dynamo it was D.C. (Direct Current). DC is more efficient than AC with less losses. Indeed, the only reason AC is needed is for transmision across long distances. Once you get to the load it is no longer required.
The interesting thing is that there are double wond mortors available today. That is, they can run on AC or DC. Its a matter of a selector switch.
Solar power is a DC source. If you make all the loads DC, then the system becomes much more efficient and less expensive to own and operate.
A simple summary would be, bring AC to the house, convert it to DC, run the whole house instead of just the lights, start getting a real payback. There is more, of course, but the idea is there.
Oma Graves
Ortexgraves.com
