Nansulate® Tip of the Day - An Overview of Solar Power & How It's Used.

Barbara Young writes about solar power in her personal hobby weblog 12voltsolarpanels.net. Her work is devoted to helping people save energy using solar powered energy to reduce CO2 emissions and energy dependency.

Here's a simple way to learn how solar panels work

What is solar energy ?

Solar energy is radiant energy which is produced by the sun. Each day the sun radiates, or sends out, an immense quantity of energy. The sun radiates more energy in one second than people have used since the beginning of time!

The energy of the Sun originates from within the sun itself. Like other stars, the sun is mostly a big ball of gases--mostly hydrogen and helium atoms.

The hydrogen atoms in the sun's core combine to create helium and generate energy in a process called nuclear fusion.

During nuclear fusion, the sun's extremely high pressure and temperature cause hydrogen atoms to come apart and their nuclei (the central cores of the atoms) to fuse or combine. Four hydrogen nuclei fuse to become one helium atom. However the helium atom contains less mass than the four hydrogen atoms that fused. Some matter is lost during nuclear fusion. The lost matter is emitted into space as radiant energy.

It takes countless years for the energy in the sun's core to make its way to the solar surface, after which slightly over eight minutes to travel the 93 million miles to earth. The solar energy travels to the earth at a speed of 186,000 miles per second, the velocity of light.

Only a small percentage of the energy radiated from the sun into space strikes the earth, one part in two billion. Yet this volume of energy is enormous. Each day enough energy strikes the usa to supply the nation's energy needs for one and a half years!

Where does all of this energy go?

About 15 percent of the sun's energy which hits our planet is reflected back to space. Another 30 percent is used to evaporate water, which, lifted in to the atmosphere, produces rainfall. Solar energy also is absorbed by plants, the land, and the oceans. The remaining could be used to supply our energy needs.

Who invented solar power ?

Folks have harnessed solar energy for years and years. Since the 7th century B.C., people used simple magnifying glasses to concentrate the light of the sun into beams so hot they'd cause wood to catch fire. More than 100 years ago in France, a scientist used heat from a solar collector to create steam to drive a steam engine. At first of this century, scientists and engineers began researching ways to use solar power in earnest. One important development was a remarkably efficient solar boiler invented by Charles Greeley Abbott, an american astrophysicist, in 1936.

The solar hot water heater became popular at this time in Florida, California, and the Southwest. The industry started in the early 1920s and was in full swing just before The second world war. This growth lasted until the mid-1950s when low-cost natural gas became the primary fuel for heating American homes.

The public and world governments remained largely indifferent to the possibilities of solar technology until the oil shortages of the1970s. Today, people use solar energy to heat buildings and water and also to generate electricity.

How we use solar energy today ?

Solar energy can be used in a variety of ways, of course. There are 2 simple types of solar energy:

 * Solar thermal energy collects the sun's warmth through 1 of 2 means: in water or in an anti-freeze (glycol) mixture.

 * Solar photovoltaic energy converts the sun's radiation to usable electricity.

Listed here are the five most practical and popular ways that solar power can be used:

 1. Small portable solar photovoltaic systems. We see these used everywhere, from calculators to solar garden tools. Portable units may be used for everything from RV appliances while single panel systems can be used traffic signs and remote monitoring stations.

  2. Solar pool heating. Running water in direct circulation systems through a solar collector is a very practical method to heat water for your pool or hot spa.

  3. Thermal glycol energy to heat water. In this method (indirect circulation), glycol is heated by sunshine and the heat is then transferred to water in a hot water tank. This process of collecting the sun's energy is more practical now than in the past. In areas as far north as Edmonton, Alberta, solar thermal to heat water is economically sound. It can pay for itself in three years or less.

 4. Integrating solar photovoltaic energy into your home or office power. In lots of parts of the world, solar photovoltaics is an economically feasible way to supplement the power of your own home. In Japan, photovoltaics are competitive with other kinds of power. In america alone, new incentive programs make this form of solar technology ever more viable in many states. An increasingly popular and practical way of integrating solar energy into the power of your home or business is through the usage of building integrated solar photovoltaics.

 5. Large independent photovoltaic systems. When you have enough sun power at your site, you might be able to go off grid. It's also possible to integrate or hybridize your solar power system with wind power or other kinds of alternative energy to stay 'off the grid.'

 How do Photovoltaic panels work ?

Silicon is mounted beneath non-reflective glass to produce photovoltaic panels. These panels collect photons from the sun, converting them into DC electrical power. The power created then flows into an inverter. The inverter transforms the energy into basic voltage and AC electrical power.

Photovoltaic cells are prepared with particular materials called semiconductors like silicon, which is presently the most generally used. When light hits the Photovoltaic cell, a specific share of it is absorbed inside the semiconductor material. This means that the energy of the absorbed light is given to the semiconductor.

The power unfastens the electrons, permitting them to run freely. Solar cells also have more than one electric fields that act to compel electrons unfastened by light absorption to flow in a specific direction. This flow of electrons is a current, and by introducing metal links on the top and bottom of the -Photovoltaic cell, the current can be drawn to use it externally.

 What are the advantages and disadvantages of solar power ?

Solar Pro Arguments

- Heating our homes with oil or gas or using electricity from power plants running with fossil fuels is a reason for global warming and climate disruption. Solar power, on the other hand, is clean and environmentally-friendly.

- Solar hot-water heaters require little maintenance, and their initial investment may be recovered in just a relatively small amount of time.

 - Solar hot-water heaters can work in nearly every climate, even just in very cold ones. You just have to choose the best system for your climate: drainback, thermosyphon, batch-ICS, etc.

 - Maintenance costs of solar powered systems are minimal and also the warranties large.

- Financial incentives (USA, Canada, European states...) can help to eliminate the price of the initial investment in solar technologies. The U.S. government, for example, offers tax credits for solar systems certified by by the SRCC (Solar Rating and Certification Corporation), which amount to 30 percent of the investment (2009-2016 period).

 Solar Cons Arguments

- The initial investment in Solar Hot water heaters or in Solar PV Electric Systems is greater than that required by conventional electric and gas heaters systems.

- The payback period of solar PV-electric systems is high, as well as those of solar space heating or solar cooling (only the solar hot water heating payback is short or relatively short).

- Solar water heating do not support a direct in conjunction with radiators (including baseboard ones).

- Some ac (solar space heating and the solar cooling systems) are costly, and rather untested technologies: solar air-con isn't, till now, a really economical option.