The iPhone seems like the perfect accessory for a solar power enthusiast. Right now, you have to navigate a maze of websites such as PV Watts to calculate how much energy you can expect to produce and how many years a solar array will take to pay itself off. The iPhone could cut to the chase. It even looks like a miniature solar panel. And indeed the App Store is filled with solar apps. What a shame that none of them quite measures up.
I downloaded and tried out 20 solar-related iOS apps–all I could find as of July 15th, apart from those that were restricted to customers of certain utilities, were geared toward professional solar installers, or were merely reference books without any ability to calculate. I don’t have an Android or WM7 phone and would love to hear by Twitter or email from users who have tried out solar apps for those devices.
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The latest to announce its demise is Google Powermeter. All the efforts to combine social networking with energy conservation seem to be pulling the plug. As I wrote back in April, Web 2.0 may be many things, but green it is not. And that’s a shame, because if our friends could “unlike” our energy habits, we might have some incentive to improve them.
Solar thermal is a branch of the solar energy is harnessing the sun’s heat energy in the life of human beings.
I’ve tried it all: caulking cracks, blowing in insulation, replacing drafty windows and–I’m especially proud of this one–installing a mail-slot cover so airtight it could be used in a space shuttle docking module . Yet my home heating bill remains an object of fear and loathing. After years of trying low-tech solutions, I’m drawn to a high-tech solution, and the one I keep hearing about is the geothermal heat pump.
It was a match made in geek heaven. Combine the hottest online activity–social networking–with the biggest environmental challenge–energy conservation–and you get something yummier than peanut butter and chocolate. It’s not just a mashup of buzzwords, either. Most of us pat ourselves on the back about our energy-saving ways. Sure, we have our vices, but doesn’t our routine greenness make up for the occasional slippage, be it bright kitchen lights or an extra degree on the thermostat? Only by talking to neighbors and friends might we discover we aren’t so virtuous after all.
This week, the lighting start-up company vu1 is beginning to ship a new type of lightbulb that could displace compact fluorescents and LED lamps as the energy-saving bulb of choice. The technology, known as cathodoluminescence or electron-stimulated luminescence (ESL), offers similar energy savings, but provides a more natural quality of light.
Here are the most important items related to solar energy:
This renewable energy is used primarily for two things, though not the only, first to heat things like food or water, known as solar thermal, and second to generate electricity, known as photovoltaics.
Last month, I wrote about the EcoDog home power monitoring system , which lets you see how much electricity your house is pulling, circuit by circuit. Apart from being fun for energy geeks like me who have an insatiable appetite for data, the device lets you discover patterns in your power consumption you might never have known about and that are burning up your money. Soon afterwards, I got a call from EcoDog’s competitor Powerhouse Dynamics . I had mentioned its eMonitor system in passing, but hadn’t fully appreciated its differences from EcoDog’s system.
