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How It Works: Solar Power
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You have probably seen some devices that have solar cells like watches and calculators, they never need any batteries. Some of them never even have an off button. They work as long as there is enough light present in a room or outside your house. There are even larger solar cells to power street lights in roads, road signs, buoys and more.
People have been using solar energy as a source of heat or electricity for quite some time now. This is because it is abundant, clean and very cheap source of energy. You might even have heard people say that electricity will be free when they use this technology. The sun can produce as much as 1,000 watts of energy per square meter of the planet’s surface on a bright, sunny day. This is a lot of energy and if people can develop a technology to collect enough solar energy then electricity can be much cheaper or free.
Photovoltaic cells or modules are usually used in calculators and satellites. The word photovoltaic means photo (light) and voltaic (electricity) converts sunlight into electricity. But, you might ask how it turns light into electricity.
The cells mentioned are made of semiconductors such as silicon. This works when the light strikes the cells, a small part of the light is absorbed within the semiconductor material. In simpler terms, the energy in the light is absorbed in the semiconductor. This is the basic on how solar power works, there is much more there is to it and there are different types of photovoltaic cells.
One of the different types of photovoltaic cell is the single crystal silicon cell. The silicon is a special material that has special chemical properties. In its crystalline form it is much more efficient. Silicon’s single atom has fourteen electrons that are arranged in three different shells.
Crystal silicone is much more effective than pure silicon. This is because pure silicon is a poor conductor of electricity since none of pure silicon’s electrons can move freely. The silicon in a solar cell is slightly modified so it will work more efficiently when it is used as a solar cell.
A solar panel works when light hits the cell. This process will free electron-hole pairs as the light hits the solar cell. A photovoltaic cell can absorb 25% of sunlight but often, it can only absorb only 15% or less.
This is because the visible light is only party of an electromagnetic spectrum. Since electromagnetic radiation is not monochromatic but is made up of a range of different wave lengths. This will result in power loss.
If you are planning to put up a residential solar power, here is how it works around your home:
First, the solar module is mounted on the roof or on the grounds of your property where sunlight is abundant and then converts it into DC power.
Next, the converted sunlight to DC power is then sent to a device called an inverter. This device will convert the DC power from the solar cells to AC power that is much like that of the power sent to you from a conventional power company.
The AC power then travels to the electrical panel or to what is usually called a breaker box. The breaker box will distribute the power to the electrical loads in your home.
With solar energy as your main source of electricity, you will have cheaper electric bills or nothing at all. Solar power is also a very clean energy since it does not require you to burn fuel like coal or gas to produce heat.
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