Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) - A term used to describe situations in which building occupants experience acute health and/or comfort effects that appear to be linked to time spent in a particular building, but where no specific illness or cause can be identified. Symptoms typically appear upon entering the building and disappear upon leaving the building in affected occupants. These buildings are also often defined as “problem buildings.”

Solar Energy – Energy from the sun.

Solar Heating – Heat from the sun is absorbed by collectors and transferred by pumps or fans to a storage unit for later use or to the house interior directly. Controls regulating the operation are needed. Or the heat can be transferred to water pumps for hot water.

Solar inverter – Also known as a PV inverter, it is a type of electrical inverter that is made to change the direct current (DC) electricity from a photovoltaic array into alternating current (AC) for use with home appliances and possibly a utility grid.

Solar inverters may be classified into three broad types:

• Stand-alone inverters, used in isolated systems where the inverter draws its DC energy from batteries charged by photovoltaic arrays and/or other sources, such as wind turbines, hydro turbines, or engine generators. Many stand-alone inverters also incorporate integral battery chargers to replenish the battery from an AC source, when available. Normally these do not interface in any way with the utility grid, and as such, are not required to have anti-islanding protection.

• Grid tie inverters, which match phase with a utility-supplied sine wave. Grid-tie inverters are designed to shut down automatically upon loss of utility supply, for safety reasons. They do not provide backup power during utility outages.

• Battery backup inverters. These are special inverters which are designed to draw energy from a battery, manage the battery charge via an onboard charger, and export excess energy to the utility grid. These inverters are capable of supplying AC energy to selected loads during a utility outage, and are required to have anti-islanding protection

Solar inverters use special procedures to deal with the PV array, including maximum power point tracking and anti-islanding protection .

Solar Panel – Also known as a photovoltaic module, it is a packaged interconnected assembly of photovoltaic cells, also known as solar cells. The photovoltaic module, known more commonly as the solar panel , is then used as a component in a larger photovoltaic system to offer electricity for commercial and residential applications. Because a single photovoltaic module can only produce a limited amount of power, many installations contain several modules or panels and this is known as a photovoltaic array. A photovoltaic installation typically includes an array of photovoltaic modules or panels, an inverter, batteries and interconnection wiring.

Sulfur Dioxide – SO2 is a heavy, smelly gas which can be condensed into a clear liquid. It's used to make sulfuric acid, bleaching agents, preservatives and refrigerants and a major source of air pollution.

Sustainable - Capable of being maintained at a steady level without exhausting natural resources or causing severe ecological damage