For many years, people have realised that it makes sense to use solar energy as a clean source of energy as we have so much available. Community attitudinal surveys for many years have shown that we would prefer to use solar energy as our primary energy source rather than coal, oil, gas or nuclear power. This is because people instinctively recognised some of the benefits of solar and the disadvantages of continuing to use fossil fuels or swapping to nuclear power. We just needed to make solar affordable and that is what is happening.

The benefits are many and varied, not just to you, but to society and future generations. Here are some benefits:

• It can give a good return on investment.
• It secures your energy costs into the future over the lifetime of the PV system, typically 25 years or more.
• It awesomely reduces pollution from fossil fuel use by about 90 percent.
• It reduces energy lost in the transmission of electricity over long distances between power station and homes or businesses.
• It provides water savings due to reduced demand for water at fossil fuel power stations.
• By using existing roofs, it avoids the use of land, leaving it available for other important purposes such as food production.
• It can create jobs in manufacturing, sales and distribution, installation and maintenance. As well, it employs more people per unit of electricity generated compared to fossil fuel generation, and this employment is spread across both urban and rural areas.

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