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Electricity production: the history
Grid electricity today is a complex and inefficient process requiring many inputs. It involves manufacturing of heavy equipment, mining of megatons of fossil fuels, shipment of those fuels, and finally the building of large power stations to burn fuel to boil huge volumes of water to drive enormous turbines to generate electricity. After all that, the electricity is transported across thousands of miles of inefficient steel cabling to your home, which alone loses about 10% of the energy as heat. You pay your utility for that electricity and all the losses incurred along the way. Doesn't that seem like a lot of wasteful steps to make power?
Silicon Valley's answer to these tired old ways of driving large turbines to create electricity is the semiconductor solar cell. Read about the technology in the section Solar Electricity and Your Home.
The Future of Electricity Production: Solar Now!
Generating your own power with solar - directly where you need it - represents a huge leap in efficiency. And don't let anyone tell you 15% efficient solar panels aren't good enough. With solar, there's no fuel to dig out of the ground and transport across the country, no mechanics and noise, no moving parts, no big power stations and long-distance transmission. Solar energy is local, clean, and super-efficient.
Sungevity is all about giving you efficient access to the power of the sun. We remove costly engineering visits to your house by remotely designing a solar system for your roof. We then source the equipment directly, removing the manufacturing, warehousing, and shipping inefficiencies so it takes far less energy, waste, and cost to get the system to your roof (see Why Sungevity).
Learn all about the other environmental benefits here, and when you're ready, enter your address and let us efficiently size up your home for its solar potential - completely free.