Currently, the use of solar panels is on very small scale compared to the use of fossil fuels. This does not go for just solar energy, but also wind energy, geothermal, and tidal. The use of renewable electricity only makes up for a small percentage of a nations actual power output.
There are however, some countries who are able to make great use of renewable energy sources to generate electricity. In some areas such as Iceland, you can expect to see most of the yearly energy output coming from these alternative energy resources. Although Iceland can't make efficient use of solar panels, geothermal energy is in abundance.
Solar panels are becoming cheaper and more efficient as time goes by. We are beginning to see more large scale, industrialised developments of solar cell arrays and power stations. These increasingly efficient solar cells are the main reason why we are able to develop economically viable sites such as these.
The use of solar power on an individual household basis can be an extremely efficient method of not only providing a source of renewable energy cutting your carbon emissions, but can also be very efficient for reducing energy bills.
With fossil fuel reserves set to decrease while demand increases, the cost of these fuels is likely to rise to a point where we just cannot afford to go on. It is time to invest in more renewable energy technologies on a residential basis, in a bid to reduce our dependance on fossil fuel reserves, and become increasingly dependent on 100% renewable energy sources.
We are very likely to see the increasing use of solar panels on a residential basis, providing not only electricity to our power supplies, but also a source of heating or hot water, through adaptions of solar cells, such as solar hot water panels.
Other renewable energy production methods using; wind, geothermal, and tidal energy are likely to increase, but on a more industrial scale, rather than residential. This makes the use of solar panels or small home wind turbines for our homes the only sensible and economical electricity production method.
For the heating of our homes, we should also start to see the more widespread implementation of solar heating systems (as mentioned above), along with the increasing use of geothermal, ground source heating systems or hot water systems which can play a vital role in providing a source of cheap, renewable and clean heat.
