Much of going solar in Ontario has been focused around the financial benefits (such as making up to $70,000 through the provincial government’s MicroFIT program), while there has been little no to no focus on the numerous environmental benefits. This blog post outlines some of the environmental perks of getting solar panels on your home.

Reduction In Carbon Emissions

Since their energy source is the sun, solar panels produce electricity without emitting any carbon. A solar panel installation on your home will produce as much as 60 times the energy required to manufacture the panels.

Facts

The clean energy produced by a home solar system with a size of 9.92KW is the annual equivalent of removing 16,250 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.

-Removing 16,250 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere is the same as taking 26 cars off the road each year.

-Removing 16,250 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere is comparable to planting 3250 trees per year.

Reducing Water Pollution

Solar photovoltaic cells don’t need water to generate electricity, while all other power generation methods require massive amounts of water.

Take coal power generation for example. Water pollution from coal includes negative health and environmental effects from the mining, processing, burning, and waste storage of coal. Water is used to create coal sludge which is then injected into abandoned underground mines. Thermal pollution from coal plants also contaminates groundwater, streams, rivers, and seas with heavy metals such as mercury.

However, in the case of solar, the benefits of using energy like this are two-fold: there is less strain on local water resources to operate solar panels, and there is also zero pollution into our water supply as a by-product of electricity generation.

Solar Energy Is Renewable, And Does Not Use Earth’s Limited Resources

DID YOU KNOW: The sun is the world’s most abundant energy source, producing an amazing 173,000 terawatts of solar energy every second. That’s more than 10,000 times the world’s total combined energy use, and it can be used over and over again. In contrast, fossil fuels are non-renewable and we are using the supply we do have at an alarming rate. In the future, as these fuel sources become more scarce, the cost of finding and extracting fossil fuels will become extremely expensive. This is a financial burden as well as an environmental hazard that we can avoid. Switching to solar today is the best way to preserve the fossil fuels that we do have access to, and at the same time be mindful of the environment.