As I am driving on the roads through Ireland, flashes of green, blue and black rush past me. The greens and blues were the gorgeous green land and mountains and the blues were the sky and water. I noticed that the black colors I was seeing rush past me were solar panels on top of houses, buildings and open grass fields. Ireland is known as a very eco-friendly and energy efficient island. The people of Ireland do whatever they can to conserve energy. Solar panels are one of the main sources of how Ireland saves and conserves energy. Solar panels absorb the energy from the sun’s rays to create more power throughout Ireland. In Cloughjordan, the eco-village has a special section for their solar panels. On a guided tour, I asked our tour guide, Una, how many solar panels they had and she said at least 50 and that they were “the power source of the village.” The eco-village uses solar panels as their main source of energy.
The eco-village has the solar panels on the ground all together, but in other places throughout Ireland, they can be placed in big, open fields or on top of people’s houses. Fewer panels are placed on top of houses in order for them to receive direct solar energy and power from the sun to use appliances in households, such as the shower or sink. The use of solar panels on top of homes also provides families to pay less for their energy bills and allows them to always have fresh hot water on demand. The solar panels on bigger grassland provide energy for surrounding places in Ireland, therefore spreading the use of solar panels all over the country and conserving more energy. In the U.S., solar panels are not used and I could not believe how many solar panels are used in Ireland to conserve energy and save money in homes. They are great to have and hopefully, the rest of humanity can use solar panels to make the world a better place.