I recently had solar panels installed on my house. What an exciting day it was! Take a look….

The men arrive with 30 solar panels. The panels collect the sun’s energy in the wires that run through the panels.

The panels turn the sun’s energy into electrical energy.

The electricity made by my panels is sold back to Orange & Rockland Electric Company, reducing my electric bill each month. I like the idea of saving money!

Even more important, I’m reducing my “carbon footprint”. If I can create electricity from the sun, then the electric company doesn’t have to burn so much coal to create electricity for me. Burning coal puts pollution (carbon dioxide and other harmful gases) into the air. Less coal burned = cleaner air!  🙂 

Air pollution is trapping the sun’s heat near Earth. It’s making the planet warmer. While that might seem appealing during the winter, it’s upsetting the balance of nature. For more information on global warming, click here.

Turning on the solar panels so they can begin generating electricity.

 It’s good to know that there’s something we can do to help reduce air pollution and slow down global warming.

I can see how much electricity my panels are generating. All the information is just a click away on my computer.

Looking at the bar graph above, you can see the number of kilowatt hours of electricity my solar panels generated in July. Can you tell which days were bright and sunny? Which days were overcast? 

Electric meter on my house. This photo was taken at 9:30 in the morning on a day in January. Note the last two digits on the digital meter: 76.

This picture was taken the same day, at 4:30 in the afternoon. Even though we used electricity in our house during the day, our panels created more electricity than we used, so the meter number went down to 73 (kilowatts per hour). The electric company owes ME money!