How to use solar energy for real. Don’t mess with photo voltaic panels. Go for plain old glass windows, facing south. In my place, on a cold winter day, (10 F) I get so much solar gain thru my windows that my furnace doesn’t kick in all day. Now the windows need to face south, where the sun is. They ought to be thermo pane, two sheets of glass with ¼ inch airspace in-between the two sheets. Just plain glass, one sheet, looses too much heat. Saving my furnace from running half a day saves a LOT of expensive ($3.499 a gallon) furnace oil. This is a far greater saving than solar photo voltaic panels offer.
While we are at it, those big south facing windows need eaves, set so that the winter sun shines right in but the summer sun is blocked. I am at 45 degrees north latitude (upstate New Hampshire). The earth’s axial tilt is 22 degrees. In summer, the axial tilt points toward the sun, giving us warm summer temperatures. In the winter, the axial tilt points away from the sun, giving us snow. In summer, the noon day sun is at 45 degrees (my latitude) plus 22 degrees (axial tilt) for a total of 67 degrees. In winter, the noonday sun is 45 degrees less 22 degrees axial tilt for a total of 23 degrees. You want eaves that give a 45 degree angle (shadow angle) to the bottom of the big south facing windows, this will let the winter sun shine in and block the summer sun.
While we are talking about eaves, good deep ones will let the rain water run off your roof and fall upon the ground with out making the soil soggy around the foundations. With good deep eaves you can skip gutters, downspouts, cleaning leaves out of the gutters, and ignoring all those ads for gutter screens.
Anyhow, good big south facing windows do more for your house than solar photovoltaic panels.
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