When you mention solar energy people would respond in a lot of ways. The most common one would be solar water heaters from Solahart. I'm blogging to give an introduction for all of you who might be interested to have solar at home.
There are two technologies available to collect solar energy: Solar thermal and Photovoltaics. Solar thermal collectors absorb the heat from the sun use this to heat up water. These are the Solahart types quite popular in the Philippines. You can actually build your own thermal collector with the following steps:
1. Build a cabinet type structure with its opening facing upward.
2. Line the structure with reflective coating.
3. Place a black painted water tank inside your structure.
4. Connect plumbing to your water tank
5. Cover your structure with translucent glass
Be sure to have your collector facing South and tilted about 15deg from horizontal. This ensures that your panel follows the path of the sun.
I more advanced set-ups, the hotwater is connected to an absorption chiller to produce solar cooling.
I will be talking about Photovoltaics next time...
typical solar thermal collector set-up
(taken from wiki-pedia)
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