For people with solar panel systems mounted on their roofs, or on the ground, generating clean, green energy and making savings on their energy bills are just two of the things they benefit from. Some homeowners with solar panel systems don’t pay a dime for their electricity, especially if they’ve invested in a battery back-up system.
But have you ever stopped and thought about the ways in which those with solar panel systems, are helping those in the neighborhood without them?
Here are 4 ways in which those with solar panels in your neighborhood, are actually improving your life, and the lives of those around you:
- By saving you money
Homeowners with solar panel arrays don’t just conserve energy so that there is more available for everyone else, but they also help to power the grid.
If you’re the neighbor of a homeowner with a solar panel array, and you typically consume a lot of energy on an annual basis, they could be helping you save money on your electric bills. Any additional electricity that their solar panels generate, is fed back to the grid, in turn, reducing the pressure felt by utility companies to spend extra money on updates to infrastructure. It can also help to limit rolling blackouts and other types of power outages necessary for power grid upgrades and repairs, by reducing transmission-line congestion.
- By preserving your health and quality of life
Homes powered by solar energy are no longer responsible for producing any harmful emissions, helping to reduce the pollution caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels in the community. Over time, this helps to preserve the well-being of others in the neighborhood, and can even lower the cost of their healthcare expenses.
- By making your community safer
The power grid isn’t getting any younger, and extra stress placed upon it by climate change – which strengthens storms and make summers much hotter – coupled with the risks of cyber-attacks, are gradually threatening its very survival. Dated and over-stressed, the utility industry will be forced to make costly upgrades in order to ensure its continuing functionality, which could mean spending billions of dollars. With more people generating electricity from alternative power supplies, a terrorist attack or extreme weather event is far less likely to wipe out the entire grid system; making it safer, and potentially saving billions of dollars for the economy, in a reduction of repairs and rebuilding work.
- By keeping the local economy ticking over
Make no mistake – every single person who chooses to power their home using solar power, is helping to reduce the countries dependence on overseas oil. Helping to diversify our nations energy supply, solar energy guarantees a reliable source of power, with consistently affordable prices. Then, as the industry keeps on growing, so do the number of jobs available within the very communities it supports.
So, whether you’re a proud solar-power-generating homeowner or not, you can still benefit from those who are. Helping to make the air you breathe and the water you use cleaner, making local electric companies stronger, and bringing a whole host of benefits to the economy, solar power isn’t just good for those who use it; it’s good for us all.