Sunrise

I love my new job working as a solar energy system installer completing (with a little help from my friends) my first project this week! An Atlanta homeowner now has both hot water and electricity courtesy of old Sol.

The new photovoltaic system has 14 roof-mounted panels which are connected via a voltage inverter to the house's electrical system. This is a netmetering device, which means that the homeowner continues to purchase electricity from the local electric utility. The panels generate clean, no-cost electricity that displaces an equivalent amount of dirty electricity that the homeowner would otherwise have purchased from the electric utility company. At any given moment when the solar panels are producing more than the homeowner can consume, the extra electricity flows out to the utility grid, and the home owner's electric meter will run backwards!

The new solar thermal system has two panels on the roof filled with thin tubing that uses the sun's energy to heat a glycol fluid the same way a garden hose left out in the sun heats water. Our system pumps the glycol, which can reach temperatures of over 220 degrees Fahrenheit, through a pipe to a heat exchanger in the basement where it produces hot water.

The hot water then flows into an insulated storage tank until needed. Much like a conventional water heater, this tank contains an electrical heating element to boost the water temperature whenever the available sunlight cannot satisfy all the homeowner's needs.

The finished project is pictured here. The homeowner intends to remove some or all of the tree so that the panels are not shaded.

My job is to help people and organizations satisfy their energy needs using economical, environmentally-sound solar technologies. This week I worked on my customer's roof installing the panels, feeling the sun's intense warmth and an urgency to do more to capture it for our benefit.

I love this work!