The American Solar Energy Society is a national non-profit group that dedicates itself to promoting and advancing solar energy use to benefits the national as well as global environment. It is the ASES mission to promote widespread use of solar engery for the short term as well as long term.

The American Solar Energy Society publishes a bi-monthly magazine that has won a number of awards. Called Solar Today, it covers all facets of solar energy and other renewable energy technological breakthroughs. Continuous topics addressed in the issues include case study building, solar and other energy policies and projects on a community-wide scale.

ASES is the U.S. arm of the International Solar Energy Society, and as such dedicates itself to adoption and development of renewable energy including solar energy, wind energy, hydrogen energy, geothermal energy, ocean energy, energy from biofuels and overall energy efficiency.

Some specific and ongoing ASES projects include the promotion of regional and national short and long term solar energy sue, the organization of the national conference on solar energy, the annual nationwide solar tour, and the online newsletter, the Sunbeam. ASES also sponsors roundtable discussion on solar energy and related issues in our nation's capital, distributes publications of interest to solar energy advocates, and organizes a network for solar action.

On its Web site ASES publishes answers to frequently asked solar energy questions. Here are some of the more commonly asked questions and their answers. Can solar energy be used for my home or my business? How do I determine if I will have enough sun for it?

The answer is that there are few places where the solar energy would not be adequate to meet at least some of your solar energy system needs. A solar energy system designer in your area, or an installer or builder or solar architect can assess your requirements for power, your property, the type of system you would need, the availability of sun and other factors to make the determination if your solar energy system would meet your power needs. Typically, a solar energy system will give off plenty of energy even on a cloudy day. It will just give you less than on a sunny day.

The next question is about whether solar electricity can be used to heat a home or office's water? The answer is that this is impractical, as a solar water heating system is much more cost effective. Similar, if you want to heat a small space you could do this best with equipment that creates solar thermal heat with passive solar designs or collectors that are transpired.