Portland and Oakland based Veranda Solar thinks solar power should be easy, attractive and hip. Started as a Stanford University student project and founded in the spring of 2008, Veranda Solar plans to appeal to customers aesthetically, environmentally and economically. The base price is anticipated to be $600.
The simple design means a homeowner can install the system themselves with a screwdriver. Once installed and plugged into the wall, the Veranda Solar panels will be sending electricity into the home or they can plug into a battery pack for later use. The panels snap together and are designed so a homeowner can start with a large system or just one panel and add over time.
The company plans to provide a calculator to help homeowners figure out what size system (from one window mounted panel to a full roof layout) will best suit their economic and structural parameters.
From their website:
… each panel is 60 watts. Say it sits in the sun for 5 hours each day. That’s about what you’d get if you average the output from a whole day in California or Arizona. That means each panel generates 300 watt hours per day. So if you use a regular 100 watt incandescent lightbulb, you’d use the power your panel generated in 3 hours of running that lightbulb. 100 watts x 3 hours = 300 watt hours! If you change your lightbulbs to equivalent compact fluorescents (23 watts/each), you could run 4 of them for 3.2 hours each! Think about that the next time you buy an incandescent lightbulb! If you’re so cool that you have LED lightbulbs…you’d be able to run 10 of them for 3 hours.
According to the company, the response has been overwhelming. They are currently in the process of taking names here for when the products are available in 2010.
Will you be one of the first on your street with the hippest solar panel to be found?
