If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, going solar is a great way to do it. Traditional electricity generation methods rely on the burning of fossil fuels, whereas solar panels use clean, renewable energy from the sun. With a solar energy system, you can greatly reduce your personal reliance on fossil fuels.
But could solar replace fossil fuels entirely? For the world at large, the answer is probably not. At least, not solar alone. In order to eliminate our global reliance on fossil fuels, we need to utilize a combination of clean energy sources, including solar, wind, and biofuel.
Solar is, however, the cleanest and most accessible form of renewable energy available to individual homeowners and businesses. In your own home and life, solar power can absolutely replace or at least greatly reduce fossil fuel consumption.
Generate Your Own Clean Energy with Solar Panels
Being able to generate electricity without fossil fuels is the primary environmental benefit of solar power. By going solar, you’ll be able to produce a lot of the electricity you need to run your home or business using clean, renewable energy. But the downside of solar panels is that they can only produce power during the day when there is sunlight available. At night, you will need to buy power from your utility, most of which is generated by burning fossil fuels.
Store Clean Solar Energy with Solar Batteries
Solar battery storage allows you to store the excess electricity your solar panels generate during the day so you can use clean energy for power at night.
The amount of energy you can store in your battery bank depends on how many solar batteries you install. With a large solar battery bank or a fully off-grid solar system, you’ll be able to store enough solar electricity that you don’t have to use grid-generated electricity at all. But even just one or two solar batteries can make a huge difference and help minimize your nighttime reliance on grid electricity. Plus, with solar batteries, your solar panels will work when the power is out!
Switch to All-Electric Appliances that Can Be Powered by Solar
Installing a home solar system can reduce your carbon footprint and your fossil fuel consumption, but unless you switch to all-electric appliances too, you won’t be able to run your home entirely on solar power. Many common appliances that we rely on in our day-to-day lives run on natural gas, oil, and other fossil fuels. By replacing your furnace, water heater, and gas stove with all-electric versions like heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, and induction cooktops, you can power your appliances with solar electricity and use even less fossil fuels.
Drive an Electric Vehicle and Install a Home EV Charger
Even if you run your entire home on solar power, you’re probably still using fossil fuels to run your car. If you want to take your solar-powered lifestyle a step further, you can switch to an electric vehicle (EV) and install an EV charging station at your home alongside your solar panels. Then, you’ll be able to charge your car with solar energy and cut another major area of fossil fuel consumption out of your life.
Take the First Step Away from Fossil Fuels with a Solar Installation
Solar energy is already proving instrumental in the fight against climate change, and you can absolutely reduce your carbon footprint with solar panels. It may not be possible to stop using fossil fuels entirely—at least not right away—but any action you take to reduce your fossil fuel consumption will have an impact.
Six Rivers Solar is a highly experienced, locally owned solar company near you on the North Coast, and we can help you start your journey towards a solar-powered home or business. Our solar energy systems can be designed to allow for future expansion, so you can start small with a few solar panels and add more panels, batteries, and EV charging when you’re ready. If you want to make the biggest difference right away, we can help you go fully off the grid or install a microgrid so you can generate and store 100% of the electricity you need for your home or business.
