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__Solar Energy for Heating - Disadvantage__



==== One of t he main disadvantages of solar energy is that it’s dilute. Another way of saying this is that for a given area of land, relativity little energy is available. This means you have to have a lot of solar collectors installed around your house or apartment. This is definitely a limiting factor in areas where space is in short supply, such as inner cities. These areas are also more likely to have obstructions from the surrounding buildings that would prevent continuous access to sunlight. How much would it cost to heat a house with solar energy as compared to using oil? For our well insulated house in the north east, we’ll need 1000 gallons of oil per year. This is approximately equivalent to 442,000 KWH of heat energy requirement for a year. To produce 442,000 KWH with solar panels would require a surface area of 29.5 square meters to harvest this much energy. Since winter sunlight is more difficult to come by than summer sunlight lets change this estimate to 40 square meters. Since most commercial collectors are 2 square meters you’d need 20 of them spread out over an area of 450 square feet to collect this much heat. ====

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