Eco-Gadget Envy – Clare

I was reading Jason Mraz’ blog post about setting up his own solar farm for his home and I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of envy: setting up solar panels to power our home is one of the things I have wanted for years!

Years ago, I remember reading online about the use of solar panels to power homes — and later reading online about how expensive it is to set up here in the Philippines. Apparently this is something that only rich people can afford to do. If you want to do this to reduce your carbon footprint and can afford it, good for you. But if you want to do this to reduce energy costs, tough luck: setting up a system enough to power your home costs more than what you pay for monthly in your electric bill…much, MUCH more. There are actually some sites that teach you how to make and set up your own solar panels but it’s just too much technical mumbo jumbo for me to understand (although Lord knows I wish I did because I would like to give it a shot).

Basing it on some news articles I’ve read online, it will take years before the price of solar panels goes down to become affordable enough for ordinary people like me. But as long as demand for it is rare, I guess the price will remain too high for me to afford. This idea of mine would have to wait for a bit. It just doesn’t help that one of the things we talk about at work happens to be about using renewable energy for power so I keep hearing about solar, wind and hydro-powered energy systems and I start wishing I had solar panels at home all over again (very geeky of me I know but what can I do? I’m exposed to too much info on it as it is!).

Have any of you ever thought of doing (or have tried) something similar? If you have please let me know.

Photo Source: Prokoneta