apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Put me in a "maybe" column. But not with today's technology.

Good idea, but it's not as simple as they make it seem. You're always going to have to hire a journeyman electrician, there's no way around it. The amount of power it takes to power a home isn't something you want "Johnny Redneck" to take home from Walmart and mess with.

Never mind that invertors are so inefficient that most of the energy is lost in the DC to AC conversion phase.

Nice idea though, if a bit simple minded.

Personally I'd like to see more federal money go to alternatives to traditional solar panels because they're toxic to produce, and extremely inefficient. Some nano-technology companies are looking promising...

Don't you have to have a suitable place to put the panels to 'catch' enough sunshine. Would every dwelling have this?

I will happily dedicate half of my patio to a solar array that will power my AC.

I have a meeting tonight to install solar panels on the roof of our apartment building, I don't think the motion will pass, because the suckers are so expensive, but think of those lovely low energy bills and all that hot water...

To follow up on Boomer's points...

"You're always going to have to hire a journeyman electrician, there's no way around it. The amount of power it takes to power a home isn't something you want 'Johnny Redneck' to take home from Walmart and mess with."

Check out the Solar In A Box website - the whole point here is to not try to power the whole house. Instead, the system is designed to only power individual outlets. All of the connections in the system are plug-in and fail-safe. You never have to deal with anything more dangerous than you would plugging in your TV.

"Never mind that invertors are so inefficient that most of the energy is lost in the DC to AC conversion phase."

That may have been true years ago, but today it is possible to build very efficient inverters with 90%-95% DC-to-AC efficiency typical. This is likely more efficient than the lines that carry power from your utility to your house. By moving the power generation close to where the power is being used, you get huge power savings.