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It warms up our faces and grows our food; energy from the sun is our life blood and gives us nearly everything we need to survive. Using its potency, however, has escaped the earths people, or at least until relatively recently. Harnessing our sun’s full potentiality may be a long way into the future, but until engineering shows us the true possibilities of our sun’s power we can use what we have as a matter of necessity, economic need and personal responsibility.

Perhaps we are happy with what’s going on today. Maybe you feel all is fine and you don’t feel the need to change a system that’s worked for over a century. If you do, consider a few of these benefits to solar power and you may just recognize its potential in a somewhat more responsible, yet selfish, light.

But Maybe I don’t care about the environment? Perhaps all in the world is o.k. as far as you are concerned. The very last thing you give a damn about are plants, clean air and pure drinking water. Heck, the drinking water turns up every time you turn on the spigot, the heat comes on when it’s freezing, the light switch brings you bright light. What’s there to worry about? Consider that this is just the problem. If you don’t care for the environment, the tap may not bring you pure drinking water, the furnace may not go on and the suv certainly won’t start. If the earth is kept spic-and-span and left to do what it was intended to do, everything would continue to work fine. But get in its way and everything you thought was all right won’t be for long.

Cost savings - One of the best things about taking care of the suns ability to serve its rightful purpose is that it can really save you money in the long run. Once solar systems are purchased and installed, they cost very little, if anything to operate. In most instances, the government will even help to pay for the upfront costs of installing the system through tax incentives. Additionally, power companies in most regions are required to pay you for energy that you have generated and not used. Yes, you read correctly, the power company will pay you!

Makes Economic Sense - In most instances, 65% of the southern hemisphere can generate more than enough solar energy to run and heat their homes with existing solar systems. This means that whatever is left over goes back to the power grid if you so choose. Just think of your power meter running backwards. The extra power you need for that cloudy day is stored in ever more efficient batteries. Most current users of the technology claim that the use of solar power systems only takes a small amount of thought in energy management.

Take Yourself Right Off the grid - Depending upon how you feel about things, another of the best reasons to use photovoltaic solar systems is that you can take yourself off the ‘grid’ so to speak. Many people do not feel like being a part of the social collective that is interconnectivity. Going photovoltaic takes you away from this one aspect of community and puts you closer to self reliance which is a great thing.

Versatility - Just because the solar energy industry has come a long way in providing electricity, heating and cooling and a whole array of other services there is a long way to go. This is not to indicate, however, that solar power is not currently versatile in form and function. Solar panels can currently be formed into thin sheets for vehicle top electric powered vehicles. They can cover rooftops and not really be noticed, unlike those 1960s units. Prices are also coming down, almost as fast as the flat screen TVs of today.

It’s Everyone’s Personal responsibility - Past the cost savings and environmental benefits that solar power brings you should consider using it because you are part of a larger social order that will procreate. The human species has not been around for all that long and is doing its best to end its run in one way or another. If you would like to give your children’s children a far better shot at continuing the human species’ run on this planet, solar energy is one small contribution that you can make all by your self.

One way to complete the goal of keeping all the creature comforts of home working in good order is by using other sources of power production like the sun, and not generating nasty things that get in the way of the planet doing its job. Most present-day sources of power include carbon based fossil fuels such as heating oil which are derived from fossilized plant matter. Environmentally responsible power, heating and cooling, and day to day transport come from living or energised fuels like h2O and O2 molecules. The Sun’s rays can be turned directly into electricity and used to power your suv, heat your home and provide your light. But to make the process work, you need to be able to have a direct shot at the sun, which means caring for the environment and not getting in its way.