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Are you looking for alternative energy solutions for your home? Perhaps you have looked into solar energy as a possibility, but discovered it was just too expensive? Well read on to learn more about a way you can harness free energy from the sun without having to outlay the thousands of dollars for installation.

The concept of building your own may sound daunting, even crazy! But not only is it possible, it's nowhere near as hard or complicated as you are probably thinking.

You can actually build with materials available at your local hardware store and for as little as two hundred dollars (USD).

There are now a number of homemade solar cell guides (more commonly referred to as DIY solar power kits) available online which can guide you through the process of making your first solar cell.

The whole process of producing your own panels is quite straight forward if you ensure you follow a guide closely, some of the better guides come with video instruction which makes the whole undertaking a synch.

Aside from rudimentary DIY skills and tools (you will need to glue, cut, drill and hammer) you don't need any special knowledge to tackle this project.

Once you have finished and installed your , you can sit back and enjoy the benefits, some people go on to make enough cells to replace as much as 80% of their power usage, this equates to hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year in savings.

Aside from the financial savings you stand to reap, using solar energy as your primary energy source means reducing your dependence on grid based electricity and this will substantially reduce the carbon footprint you have been leaving behind and as a result you will help the environment.

What is often overlooked when discussing do it yourself energy solutions is they are a lot of fun to put together and implement, it's the perfect project to include your whole family on and you will not believe the sense of achievement you will get when you get your first cells working and producing energy that you can use in a tangible way.

As stated its critical you get a good guide, there are a number of less than quality guides out there. Having said that there are many excellent ones as well, you should look for video as well as written instruction and ideally ongoing email / phone support or forum access to help out if you get stuck.