Early Ideas

"There's just got to be a way to tap into the energy of the sun!"  This idea drove me to consider many outlandish ideas.  How about a 'solar trough' — a long, parabolic reflector with a steam pipe at it's focal point?  This design would simplify the tracking while maximizing the captured energy.  I even designed a simple tracker with only two photodetectors.  Heat the liquid in the pipe, drive a turbine, and voilá!  Electricity!

If only it were so simple.

So back to more traditional approaches, like passive solar collectors for hot water and solar PV panels for electricity.

I've ignored the passive hot water system for now primarily because we just don't use that much hot water, natural gas is still cheap, and installation would not be trivial.

At this point in my life (about 12 years ago), solar PV systems were still pretty much in the 'emerging' category of development.  And while I don't mind being on the 'bleading' edge of technology, there were some significant challenges to overcome:

• Grid-tied systems were in their infancy.
• A battery-based system would not meet our total needs.
• The cost was prohibitive.
• PV efficiencies still left much to be desired.

And there was plenty else to keep me busy.  So I took a "let's wait and see what happens in the technology" attitude.