Solar Power: Being Environment Friendly

The issue of global warming is gaining wide acceptance with more and more countries making the endeavor to delay the catastrophic effects of this phenomenon. Today, scientists and environmentalists are offering people, across the world, alternatives that can be used in their everyday life.

Using solar power or the power of the sun’s heat is one such attempt. Solar energy is considered to be one of the most powerful forms of all energies on earth. It is derived from the sun, which has been producing energy for billions of years. Solar energy reaches the earth in the form of solar radiation and is converted directly or indirectly into various forms of energy like electricity and heat.

In spite of it being one of the primary sources of energy, solar energy has some drawbacks. They are:

1. The irregular and variable manner of its reaching the earth's surface
2. There is a need for a large area to collect it

Solar energy can be used for multiple purposes from heating water for use at homes to drying agricultural products and even generating electrical energy.

Trivia: British astronomer John Herschel used a solar collector box on his expedition to Africa to cook food in the 1830’s.
Some of the advantages of using solar power or energy are:

* Solar power is a renewable resource and it will take another billion years for the sun to disintegrate if ever it does. As a result, solar energy will be able to provide us with enough power to carry day-to-day operations like electricity for homes, cooking etc and can be used for commercial applications as well.

* One of the biggest advantages is that solar power is non-polluting. As compared to any other energy resource like oil or coal, solar power will not emit greenhouse gases into the air and hence is considered environmentally friendly.

* Solar power is for free. As compared to oil or coal, which you have to buy, using solar power will cost you much less or almost zero in the long run. Initially you might have to invest a little on the solar panels or cells. The maintenance of solar cells or panels is zero. Apart from this, the life of the solar cells is much longer and comes with a lifetime warranty. You can use solar cells to heat water or even drive a car. The solar cells can convert light into electricity and are often known as photo-voltaic cells.

But today, things are different and the situation at hand is grim. You can use solar energy for various purposes. Some of the uses of solar energy by organizations and individuals are as follows:

1. Companies are trying to implement photo-voltaics in electric utilities. Photovoltaic is a process through which solar energy can be converted into electricity directly.

2. Electricity can also be produced directly from steam generators using solar thermal collectors that can heat working fluid.

3. There are many companies globally who have started to implement Solar PV modules, which can easily be retrofitted into existing roofs. Solar PV modules can be connected to a buildings grid supply for generating electricity, which can be used by offices on the premises.

Photovoltaic Energy
Photovoltaic energy can convert sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PVs) cells. These cells are commonly known as solar cells. Photovoltaic cells are non-mechanical devices that are made primarily from silicon alloys.

Sunlight is basically composed of millions of different particles of solar energy also known as photons. Each photon contains a different degree of energy that corresponds to different wavelengths within the solar spectrum.

When a photon strikes a photovoltaic cell, they will either get absorbed, reflected, or pass right through. The photons which get absorbed can provide enough energy to generate electricity. When the required amount of energy gets absorbed by a semiconductor, then the electrons get dislodged from their material atoms.

Photovoltaic cells are being increasingly used in driving solar powered products. Here are some of them:

Solar chargers
* These chargers can charge some of the most powerful electronic devices like mp3 players, cell phones and digital cameras.
* Some of the top companies of the world use them for their electronic devices like Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Palm/Treo.
* These chargers consist of folding solar panels of different outputs like 6.5 watt, 12 watt and 25 watt.
* They are made with high efficiency solar cells that are compact and light in weight.
* These chargers powered with solar cells can recharge lanterns, flash lights, cell phones, satellite phones, GPS units, MP3 players and many others.

Solar Modules
* The solar modules are mostly he mono-crystalline silicon and are composed of composed of solar cells that have an average conversion efficiency of 15% or more and comes with solar glass and Tedlar (TPT) back sheet and EVA sheet compounded from fluoric-plastic and dacron.

Solar Power Radio & Crank Flashlight
* Multi-function solar radio features and can work on MW/FM/SW1/SW2 MW: 530-1600KHZ/FM: 88-108 MHZ/SW1: 3.8-10 MHZ/SW2: 11-17 MHZ
* The solar radio works on built-in single solar cell

Solar Electricity | Solar Electricity

Historical Advances in Producing Electricity From the Sun

When politicians start talking about renewable energy, you know we have problems. Solar energy is a significant renewable energy and here is an overview of how the technology has developed.

Historical Advances in Producing Electricity From the Sun

Solar electricity is simply energy produced by harnessing the sun. It comes in many forms including electricity production through panels, home heating through passive systems and mobile packets for powering devices like laptops and RVs to mention only a few platforms.

Historically, sunlight has been used by mankind to produce heat ever since we first built structures. Without electricity, mankind soon learned to orient structures to capture the heat of the sun during the day and store it in ceramic or mud materials much like a blacktop parking lot will radiate heat after the sun has gone down. Early Greek structures show a particular use of this solar strategy as do Egyptian structures.

The production of electricity using sunlight is a much more recent phenomena. In 1901, Nicolas Tesla was the first person to receive a patent related to solar electricity, but he called it radiant heating. He sought a patent for a machine to capture the radiant heat, but nothing much came of the invention.

In 1904, some unknown physicist named Albert Einstein published a paper on the potential electricity production from sunlight. In 1913, William Coblentz received the first patent for a solar cell, but he could never make it work. In 1916, Robert Millikan was the first to produce electricity with the cell. For the next forty years or so, nobody made much progress because the cells were highly inefficient at converting sunlight to energy.

In the 1950s, Bell Labs got involved with NASA. Bell was charged with coming up with a solar platform to power spacecraft once they were in orbit. The solar industry would never be the same.

Gerald L. Pearson, Daryl M. Chapin, and Calvin S. Fuller started researching different areas related to solar, but not active parts of the NASA project. By luck, they meet and exchanged ideas. While their individual projects were failures, their combined efforts produce a much more efficient cell using crystallized silicon to convert sunlight into electricity. The efficiency rate of the cells was roughly 6 percent, a marked improvement over previous technology. In 1958, NASA launched the Vanguard Spacecraft, which was powered by solar panels.

In the following years, solar technology grew in leaps and bounds. Solar panels today are roughly 15 percent efficient, but also much smaller than they use to be. More importantly, companies are abandoning the panel platform and coming out with amazing new products. The first are shingles that look exactly like regular roof shingles and perform as such. Nanotechnology is also offering amazing possibilities with quantum dots, which are essentially solar panels on the quantum level. Eventually, these dots will be incorporated in things such as paint. Yes, the paint on the walls of buildings and homes will eventually also produce all the electricity needed for the structures.

Man has used the power of the sun for heat for a very long time. Only now, however, are we starting to master the technology to turn it into large amounts of free electricity.

Solar Electricity | Solar Electricity

Lighting - High Tech With Solar Power

From the first time I saw, first hand, a solar cell making electricity, I was hooked. It was magnetic. I was going to have one, making electricity for me, one day. I didn't get around to trying it, until about 1979. I ordered $400.00 worth of solar cells from a company in California. I made a makeshift solar panel with them, which worked for a while.

Much later, in 1993, I tracked down a company in Calgary, who sold solar panels. I bought 1 for about $500.00. It was about the size of a large beach towel. It was blue in color and was mounted inside an aluminium frame. My first attempt at making a solar power lighting system worked but wasn't very efficient. I used a little incandescent bulb from a reading lamp hooked up to a car battery, that was charged by the solar panel. I mounted the solar panel in the most sunny window I had to put it in. At that time there weren't compact florescent light bulbs. I liked that solar panel so much that I bought 3 more like it from the same company. Each panel made about 50 watts in direct sunlight.

A solar cell reacts with sunlight making a positive and negative charge. When you link the two charges by attaching a wire to both ends of the solar cell, charged electrons move along the wire, and an electric current flows. When the cells are joined together, to increase the voltage and amperage, you have made a solar panel. So all this makes the electricity your light uses.

Once you have the electricity, you have to store it somewhere, or use it right away. Since the whole point of a light is to use it in the dark, and solar panels only work in sunlight, you need a battery, to store the electricity until you are ready to turn the light on.

To keep the electricity in the battery while the solar panel is connected, a diode is used. A diode is an electronic device which only allows direct current to travel in one direction. If the current tries to go in the other direction, then the diode stops it. This happens when a big dark cloud moves in front of the sun. Your panel makes so little power the battery has more voltage push, than what is coming from the panel. So the voltage from the battery tries to send current out from the battery. We want the battery to charge, and not waste the electricity until we turn on the light.

To use the direct current electricity in a battery, to run an alternating current or household current compact florescent light, you need to convert the electricity from the battery, to the kind of electricity the light will use. This device is called an inverter. It makes AC electricity out of DC electricity. The inverter is connected to the battery and the power cord from the light is plugged into the inverter.

When you switch your light on, you are using the power from the sunlight captured during the day time. The advantage of using compact florescent light bulbs is that they are very energy efficient, using little electricity, and giving out the same amount of light used by a 60 watt regular light bulb. You make your own power and don't care if the power from the electric company goes off. Your lighting system will still work.

Solar Electricity | Solar Electricity