Wanting to go fully solar not only for our hot water needs but also for our electricity needs we have purchased the book "Solar Success" by Collyn Rivers recently. The subtitle of the book "Getting It Right Every Time - The Complete Guide To Home & Property Systems" really got us interested.
I
have just recently finished reading this book and have to say that it
was a quite easy to read considering the topic and the book covers many
aspects.
I really like how the book looks at the whole solar power system from a more holistic point than just from a technical point of view.
In the first part of the book Collyn discusses all sorts of energy consuming appliances that we have in our households nowadays with a view of highlighting where it makes sense to improve the efficiency of the appliance before installing the solar power system.
The second part covers the basics of any solar power system while also listing other alternative power sources and their feasibility.
Part three covers the design and scaling of a power system, highlighting the need for an energy audit to be able to work out how big your system needs to be.
Part four covers the basics of installing a solar power system. Interesting in this part I found the section about what you are allowed to do yourself and what you need to get a licensed electrician to do.
Part
five covers the actual installation of a power system with lots of tips
on how to make your system more effective and secure.
Part six describes some typical examples based on actual installations. This part of the book gives you a rough feel of the likely costs to set-up a solar power system. As this book has only been released in June this year the pricing is still quite applicable.
Part seven in the book talks about financing a solar power system and the various rebate schemes available in Australia.
In the last part Collyn then describes the solar power system he has got on his property. Collyn also describes living with solar power and that the biggest challenge for Collyn is dealing with visitors that are not used to conserving energy and that one visitor can basically double their daily power consumption easily.
All in all I heartily recommend this book to anyone that is interested in getting their own solar power installation. The book is not just easy to read but I can see it also becoming a little bit of a reference book for myself. It contains some simple formulas to work out electrical properties of various parts of a solar power system.
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