Making the Most of the Sonoran Desert's Potent, Powerful Sunlight

With more than 300 days of sunshine in the average year, Phoenix is a great place for solar power. Even more so than the city's neighbor to the south Tucson, which lies at a substantially higher elevation, Phoenix gets lots of high-intensity, reliable sun. That may seem like a drawback when walking around on scorching pavement in the summertime, but it means that there is plenty of solar energy to be harnessed in other ways, too.

For many years, unfortunately, the apparent promise of solar power in Phoenix was only that. Although the basic technology underlying the transformation of the sun's light into electricity is relatively simple, producing economical, reliable panels turned out to be fairly difficult.

Thankfully, that has changed greatly. With a wave of new investment into the technology over the course of the last decade as oil prices soared, it has matured into something that can make good sense for homeowners in many locations. For those who are positioned in such especially desirable locations as Phoenix, then, solar has become something of an obvious choice.



Because of this, there is plenty of worthwhile assistance to be found by those interested in getting started. A wide range of phoenix solar power specialists stand ready to help just about any local family secure a setup that will work perfectly for their needs.

In many cases, this means making use of the kinds of equipment that can power a home entirely throughout the brightest days. With solar in phoenix homes of four bedrooms or more can often derive all of the necessary electricity, even during the summer when swamp coolers are running.

Of course, when the sun goes down, this will no longer be possible. One tantalizing option is to equip a home with battery storage that takes over when the sun's rays are no longer available, but the truth is that these devices still tend to be prohibitively expensive. The Best Phoenix Solar setup, then, is generally still one where a home feeds excess electricity back into the power grid. The resulting credits can take a big bite out of overall electricity costs, paying for the investment in another way.

While there is still some progress to be made, especially with regard to the storage of excess electricity, phoenix solar power is in a pretty attractive place already, then. Keeping an eye out for government incentives can be a good way of improving the equation even further, with a number of these currently looming on the horizon.