Sure, we all know that solar panels are green and clean, but how really green are they? Wouldn’t it be nice to actually see some facts and figures for a change instead of hearing phrases like solar cells save oil or solar cells reduce air pollutants? Anyone can say that about anything green, but here we will now look at some honest to goodness hard facts to ponder.
First things first, a 2.5kw solar panel array, which is very common, will supply about 380 kilowatts per month calculated with 5 sun hours per day. The average house, meanwhile, burns about 700 kilowatts of electricity per month. In raw terms, those electrical savings will amount to over 300 barrels of oil saved per year, or the equivalent mileage of 270,000 driven miles.
solar panel
Want more details? Having that system saves 2 tons of coal burning which generates the same amount of electricity. Needless to say, that cuts down on the equivalent amount of acid rain emissions, and literally reduces all greenhouse gases by over one quarter of a million pounds! Over 25 years, in a botanical and environmental sense, this is like planting 5000 trees, doing all that good from the roof of your house!
Now, couple those figures with the rising cost of electricity, and you are doing just as much good for your pocketbook as you are for the safe environment.Those are just the facts. But maybe best of all, knowing about all of this and then going solar gives you something much better then just facts, it gives you some piece of mind.
Cooler Planet is a leading solar resource for connecting consumers and commercial entities with local solar Installers. Cooler Planet’s solar energy resource page contains articles and tools such as our solar calculator to help with your solar project. Phoenix Roofing
Currently, most solar technologies are delivered via silicon crystals, whose highly refined nature and relative scarcity make them expensive components in the solar process. This makes the end-product equally expensive, and cost is one of the factors limiting the use of solar panels to generate energy.
Plastic, or polymer, solar cells are relative newcomers to solar technology, but their potential advantages – lower cost, lighter weight and greater flexibility – promise to sweep the solar industry, once sourcing and manufacturing are refined.Polymers are plastic-type substances, usually made from petroleum. Organic plastics, typically represented by such products as amber and shellac (or tree sap), may soon be available from cellulose, or food products like corn, making organic polymer solar technology not only inexpensive but environmentally friendly; i.e., disposable.
Konarka Technologies, Inc., recently announced that their flagship product, Power Plastic®, was rated at 6 percent efficiency. This may not seem like much, but solar panels currently in use rarely boast more than 12- to 14-percent efficiency, and polymer cell technology is still in its infancy. For Konarka to achieve 6 percent with its flexible organic based photovoltaic (PV) solar is truly an important milestone, as co-developer Dr. Alan Heeger of the University of California (Santa Barbara) notes.”This progress gives us confidence that we are on a technology pathway toward the vision of high efficiency, low cost ‘plastic’ solar cells.”
Heeger of Konarka
Heeger, one of the co-founders of Konarka, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000. He and his colleagues at UCSB are currently focused on issues related to the fundamental electronic structure of polymer solar cells, and hopes in the near future to bump that efficiency rating to a full 10 percent, which would make it highly competitive with silicon-based solar.
Another discovery, from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, promises to improve polymer solar material by substituting a silicon atom (or a crystalline) for a carbon atom in the backbone of the polymer. Eventually, says UCLA researcher and co-author Hsiang-Yu Chen, solar cells may be as thin as paper, attachable to any surface, and colored to match different applications.Imagine hanging a solar panel alongside your deck or patio that looks like a Van Gogh!
Cooler Planet is a leading solar resource for connecting consumers and commercial entities with local solar Installers. Cooler Planet’s solar energy resource page contains articles and tools such as our solar calculator to help with your solar project.
A solar cell is a device which changes sunlight into electricity. A more technical term for a solar cell is a photovoltaic cell. The term “photo” derives from the Greek word for “light,” and the term “voltaic” comes from the word “volt” which means “electrical force.” A “cell” is a small receptacle or container containing electrodes which generate power. Thus, a photovoltaic cell is a container that creates electric force, through light. Whereas a solar cell can generate electricity from any light source, its intended use is the collection of solar energy from the sun.
How a Solar Cell Works
The solar cell works as follows: Photons (which are particles of light in sun rays) hit the surface of the solar cell and are absorbed a semiconductor, such as silicon. These photons (bits of sunlight) knock electrons loose from the atoms inside the semiconductor. The photons then push the electrons along, leaving a “gap” in the atom. Another electron is then pulled from an adjacent atom to fill the gap. And so an electrical flow is generated.
The simplicity of this is that one atom has an extra electron, and the other atom is missing one. This is referred to as a “difference in potential.” Nature, wanting to remain balanced, tries to even things out by pulling another electron from the neighboring atom. A solar panel is comprised of a group of solar cells which are linked together to produce the desired amount of electrical energy. A group of solar cells linked together can also be referred to as a “module.” Thus the terms “solar panel,” and “solar module,” are synonymous to each other, and essentially mean the exact same thing. “Solar panel” is the more common term, and “solar module” is the technical term.
solar panel
One can use solar panels individually or one can link several together in order to generate more electricity. When a group of solar panels are linked together, it is called a “solar array”. The more solar panels are included in a solar array, the more power they produce. Solar Power is a clean and virtually unlimited source of energy. I say “virtually unlimited” because the sun itself won’t last forever. But we won’t have to worry about that for the next few billion years. Since solar power is a clean energy source which has been around for decades, one might wonder why its not used more. The answer to this lies partially in the cost of producing solar panels, as well as in the efficiency of the solar panels.
We are currently in the second generation of solar panel technology and verging on the third. A lot has changed since the first generation. Solar panels a are becoming a viable source of clean energy. The solar cells of earlier times were relatively large and bulky compared to our current models. In view of the amount of energy and material required to produce them, and the amount of energy they actually produced, it was more costly to use solar energy than to use fossil fuels. The only exception was in places where little or no fossil fuels were available, such as in space.
With the second-generation solar cells, we attempted to tackle this exact problem. We attempted improve manufacturing techniques so as to reduce the costs, materials and energy needed for the production of solar cells. Recently, major advances have been made in the production of solar cells, which have reduced production costs. One contribution in this area was the development of techniques to coat glass or ceramic materials with very thin layers of semi-conductive substances. This made it possible to produce solar panels using only a fraction of the semi-conductive material that was required earlier.
Solar panel
The production of solar panels using this second-generation technology is referred to as “Thin Film Technology.” Third-generation solar energy technologies are currently being researched and developed. The objective is to improve the power of solar cells even further (while keeping production costs to a minimum) in which case thirty to sixty percent of the sunlight hitting the panels will be converted into electricity. (Currently, solar panels convert only about twenty percent.) But regardless of third generation solar technology, the second-generation solar cell is efficient enough to make solar technology viable – and a host of new solar-powered products have hit the consumer market.
Solar-powered calculators have been in use for a while now, we’ve all seen them. We have even seen a few other novelty devices. But only in the last few years have solar devices come into serious and practical use. The last two years in particular have seen a virtual explosion of solar devices hitting the market. Solar flashlights (I’ve often wandered what use they were), solar-powered radios, and, recently, solar battery chargers.
One can also now find a wide range of portable solar chargers and panels, which are lightweight and easy to transport, yet capable of providing a decent amount of power in even the most remote locations. Solar chargers are becoming a standard part of wilderness survival kits and emergency preparedness kits. All of this is a result of the developments in solar cell technology, and the coming of the Solar Age.
The term Green Power encompasses many fields and as our planet’s natural resources are slowly running out, we must find alternatives to replace them. We must take into consideration the serious problem of greenhouse gases and global warming.There are many alternative sources of renewable energy and these are the future technologies that must be developed if we are to provide future generations with a healthy environment in which to live.
Solar power generation is one of the first to spring to mind, it is a totally clean and renewable source of free energy from the sun. It is used to generate electricity to power our homes, offices and factories and to heat water. New technology means wind power generation is gaining in popularity and besides the large scale wind farms, it can also be used for domestic purposes to power our homes as well.
Our Fuel resources are one of the main concerns that have to be dealt with in the future.One of the largest consumers of fuel is the automobile, the ordinary family car, and the trucks that ply our highways, plus a multitude of internal combustion engines used for many different purposes. Alternative fuel sources are constantly being developed, and the most promising seems to be biofuels, which are produced mainly from biomass products such as plant and vegetation matter. Some of these include corn and sugar cane among others. They are relatively pollution free and extremely environmentally friendly.
Energy conservation also plays a large part, and means reducing the amount of energy used, either by actually using less energy or by reducing the consumption of energy services. Reducing the energy demand can offset the increased amounts of energy needed by a growing population. Energy conservation is often the most economical way to counteract energy shortages. It also enables replacing non-renewable energy resources with renewable ones, such as solar, wind, or hydro power. Further, it can help lessen climate change by lessening the amount of emissions in the atmosphere. It can help keep rising energy costs in check, and facilitate flexibility in the choice of which renewable resources to use instead of non-renewable ones. About half the energy usage in the US is by individual consumers specifically for transportation and residential use. Significant gains are being made in the reesidential area by consumers buying energy efficient vehicles and appliances.
There is a lot of talk these days about hybrid cars. Simply put, hybrid cars combine two-types of power, usuallly gasoline and electricity, in an attempt to increase vehicle efficiency and reduce the amount of gasoline used. Such a car is usually built as an electric car (electric motor and batteries), with a small (usually 10 – 20 horsepower) gas engine that powers a generator to basically serve as a charger for the car’s batteries. There are hybrid cars in almost any category of car you could want: Sedans, SUV’s, coupes, vans, and luxury cars all have hybrid models. With the advances in technology plus the fact that fuel prices are ever increasing has ensured more than ever, the savings that hybrid cars can offer are looking extremely attractive. If hybrid cars are compared to their petrol counterparts, hybrid cars generally attract a higher purchase price, but the whole of life cost of the hybrid technology car may mean you save significant dollars and also help the environment. At this stage nearly every major automobile manufacturer in the world has serious plans to release new models of hybrid cars. Read More
