Do it Yourself Renewable Energy Solutions.

Green DIY Energy is another excellent DIY Renewable Energy guide. The guides are complete in every way, and the quality of the videos is above par. The material include detailed explanations of the technical side of how solar and wind energy work, as well as a large selection of DVD quality videos that allow you to follow along as they construct a solar panel.

GreenDIYEnergy also offers extensive bonus materials, as well as a library of many other videos which all relate to setting up your own renewable energy project 

The first thing we did was to take a look at the instructional videos. All of the videos we looked at were of professional quality, with plenty of detail and narration. When you click on any of the videos you will sit through a somewhat lengthy introduction as well as a series of disclaimers which I assume are there in case you electrocute yourself in the process of assembling your project. But since you are working with relatively low amperage here, that shouldn't be too much of a concern until you are ready to connect to your grid. And that part is something best left to a professional anyway.

When you receive the download link for the product you will be taken to a page which gives you the option of having a cd-rom with all the information mailed to you. You will also be asked to enter your name and email address so they can send you product updates. In addition to that you will find 4 links to the guides themselves. The first part is a rather lengthy and technical introduction to Solar Photovoltaics. The second part is called the $98 solar panel, which of course means that you should be able to build their standard solar panel from their plans for under $100. Part 3 is an introduction to wind power which again goes into the technical aspects of wind energy, and the last part is called the $140 wind turbine which shows you how to make a wind powered generator.

To the left you will see a couple of screen shots from the build your own solar panel video library. (Sorry we cannot make these available to you due to copyright laws). The videos were of very good quality and you have the option of watching them on site, or downloading them to your own machine. The videos are fully narrated unlike some other products that just play background music through the whole thing. We found the material and videos easy to follow along with and arranged in logical order.

One thing we didn't see that surprised us were videos on how to make the wind generator. A wind generator tends to be a more complex machine to assemble and videos certainly make it easier to follow along. We hope that the folks at GreenDIYenergy would add those to the site sometime soon. We were told that it was "in the works."

Upon reviewing the material on how to build a wind generator we were quite impressed with the quality, and quantity of the information presented. The photo series of the assembly process was very good and unlike some others, presented sharp and detailed photos taken of the wind generator assembly process.

 

The photo on the left is an example of one taken from the guide. The actual photos in the guide are quite larger and show good detail of all the materials and components and how they fit together. The wind generator guide also includes lots of useful information such as a breakdown of all the parts required, as well as their expected costs. They also offer suggestions on where to find the parts for the least amount of money.

As part of our review of this product, we chose to construct a wind powered generator ourselves using only the information provided within the guide. As we progressed through the materials list and safety data we were impressed by the quality and detail of the information provided. We gathered up our material list and made our way to the local home center to get the some of the components required. The actual generator part itself, as well as some of the necessary electrical parts came from Ebay.

We were able to follow along without any problem whatsoever and get our windmill up and running and producing electricity. Although we did not place it on a mast, or connect it to a grid, we were able to test it's functionality and were satisfied with it's performance and overall power output. 

The instructions and videos for building a solar panel were complete in every way as well, and we are confident that anyone with average skills will be able to make their own solar panel, or wind powered generator using this guide.

Several bonuses are offered with this guide, including;

- DIY Solar Guide Bonus - Electrical Wiring Plans for Solar Panels
- DIY Solar Guide Bonus - Installing and Mounting Solar Panels Guide
- DIY Solar Guide Bonus - Energy Consumer Guide
- DIY Solar Guide Bonus - PV Solar Panel Array Sizing Worksheet
- DIY Solar & Wind Guide Bonus - Solar & Wind Tax Credits & Rebates
- DIY Wind Turbine Guide Bonus - Wind Map Resources
- DIY Wind Turbine Guide Bonus - Renewable Energy Guide

To summarize our review of GreenDIYenergy. It is a good product, with easy to follow instructions and high quality videos and illustrations. They also offer a tech support email which we tested with a general question regarding assembly of our wind turbine. The question was answered promptly (within the hour in fact) with the correct answer. They are also an accredited  member of the Better Business Bureau.

Price $49.97

Our rating. 4 of 5 starsVisit the GreenDIYenergy Site