Please recommend books on solar energy for heating and electrical applications in residential construction. I am interested in becoming knowledgable about the types of cells and panels available and how to calculate the power available.
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Hi,
Here are some PV book and article links:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/PV/pv.htm
The Photovoltaics: Design and Installation Manual
is good, and (I think) matches your goals.
The Home Power articles are also very good.
Don't forget solar heating -- 5 times the energy for 1/5 the cost of PV.
Gary
Especially consider solar for heating water. Some neighbors where my mom lives have used it for years as the only heat for a swimming pool.
-- J.S.
http://www.nesea.org/
Here is link with a lot of info: http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/sustainable_architecture.htm
You might want to check out Home Power magazine. They usually test some component of solar power each issue and have articles covering home installations of wind and hydro as well as solar. They used to allow free access to back issues on their website, but I don't know if that is still the case as I haven't actually tried it in a while.
Solar Today magazine is more about the industry while Home Power is more about actual installations - some of them pretty funky.
http://www.homepower.com
http://www.solartoday.org
I neglected to mention one other online home energy related website. That is Home Energy. They do not particularly focus on solar but they do cover a broad spectrum of home energy products. They also have archived articles for a number of past years. http://www.homeenergy.org/And don't forget to do a search on "solar" on Amazon.com books - you should get several thousand titles to look at.
Thanks so much for the info. I will get on board with Home Power right away. Solare