Using renewable energy for your business

All it takes is for cost of a barrel of oil to spike up, and once again everyone starts talking about renewable energy. Then just as fast as whatever it was that caused the price spike goes away, the conversation dies down. It really is all ridiculous too because the future is coming and it is renewable energy.



Now the fact is that the hardware for assembling your own renewable energy system became cost effective years ago and its growing even more as time moves on. That is that it the cost of putting together, say a solar system is about 30% less than the value of the power it produces over its service life.



The big problem though, is that while the power that comes off your power grid does cost more, it's on an easy payment plan. You simply get your bill once a month, pay it, and that's it. Simple and easy and this is what has so many people hooked. It's just easier that way.



However, for you as a business person, there is the public relations aspect that you have to take into consideration. That is that it's just good for business for you to be seen as a conservationist by your clients or customers and this trend in PR is only expected to grow.



By far the easiest type of system to set up is a photovoltaic solar system that uses solar panels. Now while they are quick to install and get online, they do none the less have a few shortcomings that you will have to contend with.



The first is that they only generate power in the daytime and electricity is expensive to store in batteries, but it can be done. The option that most people take though is to direct excess production back into the grid during the day, get credited for it and then draw it back out at night.



Now if your business is in an area where you have a steady supply of wind, then you need to know that a lot of progress has been made in wind turbines. New off the shelf, high tech turbines that can be generating energy for you in about the same time as it takes to set up solar panels.



The nice thing about wind turbines is that they operate 24 hours a day, just as long as the wind is blowing. Also if you have enough wind and buy a big enough turbine system, you can generate a very large amount of power.



One issue to consider with wind turbines though, is that they do tend to be a bit costly, and it's not just the cost of the turbine that can run up your bill. It's the tower, because good towers can be expensive and that particularly holds true for larger towers that you would mount a large turbine on.