I am tired of paying these really high outrageous gas and electric prices and I want to become green to save a little green. I am investigating solar power but the price does not look good to me. Any other ideas on how to harness electricity? I'm open, but the pocket book is some what open.
If your goal is to get off the grid, convert all you can to gas or kerosene. However this would cost you more that your savings would be. Solar is still too high for the kilowatt output. Maybe some day but not now.
It looks like you are not as interested in "saving the planet" as you might be in saving the soul of your checkbook. But from where I sit that is still perfectly legitimate.
It doesn't matter if you are living 20 miles from the nearest human being or 20 feet to the next door neighbor one fact is the same. You live in some kind of an environment and you have to take that environment into consideration. When we are on the smallest scale we are talking about your particular micro environment.
You have to determine where you lose money and what alternative sources of energy are available to you. I know someone who lives in a city and determined that he was losing a lot of heat in the stair well next to the boiler room. So they put a clear awning over it and closed in the sides to make what is now a greenhouse. They are growing some potted veggies all winter long. They have conserved energy first by closing in a space that was loosing heat. Then they were able to allow this solar room to collect heat during the day and transfer it into the house. At night they would give back a fraction of what was gained during the day. And last they are growing some of their own food giving an additional savings.
Solar thermal sounds like a complex process. It is cheaper than solar photovoltaic and the cheapest way to go is with solar thermal air panels and sun rooms instead of using pumped water collection and storage. However piping through such a space might collect enough hot water for a percentage of domestic needs without the need consider frost protection if the space itself will not freeze.
But the process is the same:
Assess your environment
conserve what is possible
gain wherever possible
store energy however possible.
Usually our only thermal energy storage is the air in our homes. As soon as it can escape to the outside we are loosing heat. (And so we are admonished to seal up our homes.) Another approach is to provide some kind of thermal mass. In a city there is often a lot of masonry. Masonry walls can easily be used for storage of heat but this requires insulating the storage from heat loss and the ability to gain heat from the sun. Sometimes this means glazing on the outside of masonry walls and convecting the heat gained to the inside.
The last thought is with lighting. Sometimes there are dark rooms because the sun never shines in them. Sometimes it is possible to avoid putting lights on by just placing a mirror on the outside to reflect the light in. To keep the mirror pointed correctly all day long you would need a heliostat (motorized mirror that tracks the sun.)
All this comes down to an assessment of your particular situation as a start and this is more difficult to do online. Either you have to do this yourself armed with whatever knowledge you can gain from reading or you have to be very lucky to find someone who is knowledgeable enough to do this for you but without a particular product or agenda of there own. Generally the more thought that you can put into planning and research the more you can save out of pocket. (As long as the planning and research are not costing you too much.)
