The home also has to be designed to reduce barriers to air paths through the home to let natural ventilation in. You need to use the right type and size of windows to reduce the heat during extra hot days. Landscaping and structural features can be used to make shade. The home also has to be insulated well to keep the right temperature. However, those who experience very long winter months may not get the best effects. Things to Power Nowadays, solar energy can power a variety of objects such as homes, offices, cars, small light fixtures, toys and calculators. You can now rely on the sun to help you minimize utility and electric bills. Solar Thermal Systems Solar thermal systems, on the other hand, simply generate heat, and are well-suited for boilers, furnaces and water heaters, as this type of system allows you to make heat using direct solar energy at a much lower cost as compared to using conventional energy and electricity. However, if you want to retrofit your home with one of these solar thermal systems, you need to sacrifice a little bit of space in your home. Here is some more info. The First Category The first way to view solar energy will depend on how the energy is transformed into useful energy. There are a couple of types in this category - passive solar energy and active solar energy. Passive solar energy describes the harnessing of the energy of the sun without the need for mechanical devices. Get the cooked copper sheet plus the uncooked sheet then fit these into the plastic bottle. Bend each sheet outward so that no part of the two sheets will stay in contact with each other. It is important that you clip one of the available alligator leads to the top of each sheet to connect these to the meter. This means that there is no real shortage on viable solar energy that you can use in the future. However, how you apply solar energy could affect how much energy and electric power you consume. Problems of Solar Energy One of the challenges that solar energy needs to hurdle for the future is the problem of space.