The Benefits of Renewable Energy: Your Wallet and Your Community

In this day and age, is is crucial to find ways of protecting the environment and its resources to ensure that future generations can thrive on Earth. Fortunately, using renewable energy does not only help the environment but can ultimately save you money as well. In fact, here is a more detailed look at 4 benefits of renewable energy:

1. Unlimited supply

Strong winds, plant residues, fast-moving water, sunshine, and heat from the planet are all examples of energy sources that are limitless or can be replenished. Such sources can easily supply future populations with the energy they need without worry (with the exception of plant residues and fast-moving water if such resources are not taken care of properly).

2. Availability

One of the best things about using renewable energy is that doing so allows for more local control of energy to best benefit the country and individual communities. Using renewable energy helps everyone to become involved and shape energy use for the future.

It is also believed that energy pricing can be stabilized with the use of renewable energy. Many natural resources, such as uranium and oil, experiences pricing fluctuations based on a number of factors. However, renewable energy will not be affected by the increased costs of international resources and its cost will be mostly related to repaying invested capital. In fact, you can see how much money such a service costs by checking out renewable energy providers through services such as Alberta Energy.

Another important thing to note is that the cost of installing energy efficient systems are decreasing. In fact, the cost of a solar panel has decreased by nearly 60% since 2011 while the cost of generating power from wind has dropped by about 20%. In windy areas such as Texas, wind power can directly compete with the use of fossil fuels.

3. Environmentally friendly

Renewable energy is excellent for the environment due to the fact that the systems produce little to no greenhouse gas emissions while in use. Furthermore, only small amounts of emission is produced during the manufacturing of fuels and equipment. Renewable energy sources also produce fewer water and air pollutants, land disruption, and waste.

4. Job creation

Localizing the use of renewable energy produces jobs all over the country (and world). In fact, according to a fact sheet provided by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), in 2012 alone, over 110,000 green jobs were created.

Fortunately, there are plenty of jobs available dedicated to helping the world become more green. In fact, sectors with energy efficiency include:

• Public Mass Transit 
• Energy-saving Building Materials 
• HVAC and Building Control Systems 
• Green Architecture and Construction Services 
• Professional Energy Services 
• Appliances 
• Energy-saving Consumer Products 
• Battery Technologies 
• Smart Grid 
• Electric Vehicle Technologies 
• Lighting 
• Water Efficient Products 

As you can see, there are many benefits for using renewable energy. With vigilance, you can do your part to help the world and also put more money back into your wallet.

Dale Hooper has worked as an electrical engineer in Both the US and Canada, where his wife is from. He also enjoys sharing his knowledge on the topic online.