Referring back to the question asked before about making your own solar panels, the answer is yes you can build them yourself, but unless you are interested in doing it purely for the joy of construction, you'd be far better off buying professionally manufactured product.

Building solar panels properly is a tricky business, and building something that will last more than a couple of years, or that performs as well as it ought to is not a trivial matter. Make sure your soldering skills are absolutely first class before embarking on this project, however, as this is the most likely reason for failure - either by soldering a dry joint or burning out a solar cell.

There are lots of YouTube videos about people making their own solar panels, although most of these don't really cover long term reliability and the alike. I suspect a lot of people who have built their own panels have found they have failed after a year or two.

I've written a book on solar power and of course, I highly recommend it to anyone. But leaving aside the advert for one moment, I'd recommend you go and have a look at www.SolarElectricityHandbook.com web site and look at the solar calculators.

There is a questionnaire that you can fill in about what you want to achieve with solar power. Once you've filled that in, it e-mails you a 12 page report on what it will cost and what you will need to make your system work.

Then, buy yourself a cheap professionally built solar panel and build yourself a simple solar electric system - a shed lighting project is always a good one to start with - and have some fun learning about the technology.

Although I was unable to attend I enjoyed the progressive energy over the airwaves.
Thanks Wisconsin Public Radio for the great interviews and surprising subject matter.
Also for their efforts to archive past programs and making it easy to search for specific environmental issues 24/7/365.
I take great pride in being an Earth Day baby and still spinning in all the info by progressive groups and associations in Wisconsin, the U. S. and around the world.
For the wind power interests, the issues about the closing of a Vestas Wind Systems plant and the hold-outs keeping things alive and controversies over wind development in Vermont need more national attention. Our dependence on GHG-emitting resources is going to be costly. Can't we bring back 55 MPH and slow things down. Finally some Carbon Cap and Trade/Tax system needs a portion set aside for funding sustainable education, conservation programs etc. The DVD "Home" has been the most inspiring thing I've ever seen too. I'm looking forward to "The Cove" movie and attending next years event in Custer.
LEED the way Wisconsin!

Since Wisconsin is filled with groundwater,lakes and streams, how is MGE planning for the hydrogen economy, distribution, and preparing for a clean future based on hydrogen and oxygen, NOT coal?

Bob's answer:
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your question. You are right that there is a huge amount of hydrogen contained in Wisconsin’s water resources. Unfortunately, pulling elemental hydrogen out of water requires more energy than is released when the hydrogen is burned. Making hydrogen from water is most often done using electricity, which means hydrogen really acts kind of like a battery. It stores some of the energy originally used to create the electricity.

Hydrogen can also be derived from fossil fuels such as natural gas and from methane produced by decomposition of organic matter. Similar to getting hydrogen from water, this process does not make energy beyond what is available in the existing fuels.

Another issue is the need to develop a very significant amount of infrastructure to obtain, distribute and utilize hydrogen as a fuel.

MGE is focusing on ways to better use the existing electric infrastructure and to increase the amount of electricity produced from renewable sources. Advances in electric batteries and electric vehicle technology as well as electric transmission and distribution technologies will help improve energy efficiency and allow us to move away from directly using fossil fuels for many applications. At the same time, MGE is aggressively pursuing renewable generation from solar, wind and other sources.

Please see the following links for more information:

Electric vehicle charging network

Expanded Clean Power Partners solar program

Wind farm development rights

Green power leadership

Increasing wind power capacity