Reduce Your Carbon Footprint with Solar Energy – Myrtle Beach & Other Cities Reducing CO2 Emissions

Solar power saves money for the homeowner by reducing their dependence on the electric company power, but it also helps reduce their carbon footprint. This is an important part of helping the environment by reducing CO2 emissions and conserving resources through renewable energy.

What is a carbon footprint? The carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas emissions caused by an individual or group.  Homeowners increase their carbon footprint by their living habits through their home usage (such as if they use natural gas to cook their food for example), their buying habits, and other means of consumption through lifestyle.  In this way, everyone influences greenhouse emissions both directly and indirectly.

What is Greenhouse gas and how does it affect the environment?  Greenhouse gases are gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.  Carbon dioxide is one of these Greenhouse gases.  Carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and oil.  It’s also produced as a result of certain chemical reactions.  It is reduced naturally as it is absorbed by plants as part of their life cycle.  The Greenhouse gases in trapping the heat could lead to global warming.

How can Solar power reduce CO2 emissions?  Solar power can help reduce CO2 emissions mainly by being a clean and renewable source of energy.  Solar power is not dependent on burning fossil fuels or other products; instead, it uses electrons from captured from the sun’s energy for energy creation.  Therefore, solar energy does not create greenhouse gases for energy production at your house.  It’s been shown that of energy production methods including Coal, gas, oil that renewable energy such as PV (photovoltaic) solar and wind energy have a far lesser carbon footprint.  The reason renewable sources have a footprint at all is due to the emissions created during the production of the equipment during manufacturing.  The number is extremely low considering that the emissions from the one-time production of the equipment is spread out over an estimated 30 to 40-year life of the panels (for PV solar).

In summary, solar power has an affordable front-end cost, saves money monthly on energy bills, and cuts down on the CO2 emissions that affect our environment.  An investment in solar power makes sense all around.

To find out what your current carbon footprint is, there are several online calculators.  One such calculator can be found here:  https://www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-calculator/

For more information on solar energy in Myrtle Beach and surrounding cities, please contact Monarch Solar.  843-817-6527 or info@monarchsolarenergy.com.

 

By | 2017-10-23T09:08:58-04:00 October 23rd, 2017|Blog|