Landscaping Ideas: Solar Lighting

More and more homes nowadays are catching onto the trend of using solar lights for lawns, walkways, driveways, and outdoor seating areas. These lights can be purchased from home improvement stores such as The Home Depot, Lowe’s, or your neighborhood gardening store. For about $3, you can get the basic ones or spend a little more money for more elegant finishes. These are also eco-friendly because they are powered by the sun, economical, and easy to install with no wiring needed whatsoever. We've tried out some of these already and they are great.

Solar at The Go Green Home

Taking advantage of the earth's most abundant source of energy-- The Sun!

Not only is the Go Green Home rooftop a great place for viewing the cityscape, from the beach to downtown, but now this roof is home to 30 solar panels which will provide the house with 5.6 kW of energy. This system will eliminate at least 100 tons of carbon dioxide over its 30+ year lifetime.

While the sun's abundant energy is actively utilized by the photovoltaic panels, there are also
measures of passive solar use throughout the house. Adjacent to the panels is a large skylight which will allow light to infiltrate the house throughout the day, cutting down on the need for artificial lighting. There are also several large windows facing south that welcome in the daylight all year long.



The PV panels were installed by SolarCity over a period of three days (see right). If you have been considering using solar, now is the best time to buy! The recent bailout opened the door for much larger federal rebates for PhotoVoltaic Systems; there is now a 30% tax break on the total cost (the rebate used to be capped at $2,000).

Plants have been utilizing solar energy now for millions of years, it's about time more of us start making use of this unlimited resource.