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How Does Solar Energy Works
Author: John Tahan
Solar energy can reduce your electric and heating bill by and incredible amount leaving you with the savings to enjoy life a little and save for the future. Solar energy is about a technology that converts the sun energy into electric current with the help of solar panels. The mechanics behind solar energy is the work of the all mighty God; the sun’s incredible energy is produced thanks to the help of hydrogen through nuclear fusion that travels directly to the earth. The receiving solar panels convert the rays into electric current that are stored in batteries.
Heating by solar power is a free way of heating. When you heat using solar power you use a source that will direct the heat from the sunlight during the daytime to your solar source. A solar source is a device that you use to attract and trap the heat from the sun. Just like a car out in the parking lot gets hot when it faces the midday sun and the windows are rolled up. The seats can become very hot, too hot to sit on. These seats are a solar source because they trapped the heat inside and didn't want to let them go. When this happens the seats will still be warm long after the sun quits shining directly on that car.
Once you understand how solar power works and how solar energy works, we must realize that cleaning up the environment will enable us to take advantage of the sun for solar energy, the thick layer of pollution around our planet puts limitation in the concentration and penetration of sun rays to the earth. How does solar energy works is no mystery to the scientist, solar energy is used around the world and even the space shuttle uses solar energy.
One thing is certain, the benefit of knowing how does solar energy works and how it is used to help people live better around the world, is a positive step in the right direction in the cleaning up of our planet.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/home-improvement-articles/how-does-solar-energy-works-842278.html
About the Author
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Solar Energy?
Can someone explain how solar energy works?
How solar energy equipments works ?
I want to know advantages and disadvantages also cost of the equipment which is possible for me to use for agricultural purpose
Please tell me which internet sites provide the best explanation of how solar energy works to a 9 year old?
Any sites that would explain how photovoltaic cells work?
How renewable energy solar power works?
My father is asking me to post a question about this.He is planning to buy an alternative renewable energy resources.Is it true that you will save electricity from alternative home energy solutions? Any suggestions and help on this post is highly appreciated thanks.
Does solar energy work with regular light bulbs?
Like if you have a solar energy ipod touch case and you want to charge it in your room, will it work with regular light bulbs?
you’d be better off understanding it yourself and then teaching it to your kid since then they can ask you questions and you’ll understand them better than a stranger.
This is a actual explanation of how it works.
Photovoltaic Cells: Converting Photons to Electrons
The solar cells that you see on calculators and satellites are photovoltaic cells or modules (modules are simply a group of cells electrically connected and packaged in one frame). Photovoltaics, as the word implies (photo = light, voltaic = electricity), convert sunlight directly into electricity. Once used almost exclusively in space, photovoltaics are used more and more in less exotic ways. They could even power your house. How do these devices work?
Photovoltaic (PV) cells are made of special materials called semiconductors such as silicon, which is currently the most commonly used. Basically, when light strikes the cell, a certain portion of it is absorbed within the semiconductor material. This means that the energy of the absorbed light is transferred to the semiconductor. The energy knocks electrons loose, allowing them to flow freely. PV cells also all have one or more electric fields that act to force electrons freed by light absorption to flow in a certain direction. This flow of electrons is a current, and by placing metal contacts on the top and bottom of the PV cell, we can draw that current off to use externally. For example, the current can power a calculator. This current, together with the cell’s voltage (which is a result of its built-in electric field or fields), defines the power (or wattage) that the solar cell can produce.
That’s the basic process, but there’s really much more to it. Let’s take a deeper look into one example of a PV cell: the single-crystal silicon cell.
How Silicon Makes a Solar Cell
Silicon has some special chemical properties, especially in its crystalline form. An atom of silicon has 14 electrons, arranged in three different shells. The first two shells, those closest to the center, are completely full. The outer shell, however, is only half full, having only four electrons. A silicon atom will always look for ways to fill up its last shell (which would like to have eight electrons). To do this, it will share electrons with four of its neighbor silicon atoms. It’s like every atom holds hands with its neighbors, except that in this case, each atom has four hands joined to four neighbors. That’s what forms the crystalline structure, and that structure turns out to be important to this type of PV cell.
We’ve now described pure, crystalline silicon. Pure silicon is a poor conductor of electricity because none of its electrons are free to move about, as electrons are in good conductors such as copper. Instead, the electrons are all locked in the crystalline structure. The silicon in a solar cell is modified slightly so that it will work as a solar cell.
A solar cell has silicon with impurities — other atoms mixed in with the silicon atoms, changing the way things work a bit. We usually think of impurities as something undesirable, but in our case, our cell wouldn’t work without them. These impurities are actually put there on purpose. Consider silicon with an atom of phosphorous here and there, maybe one for every million silicon atoms. Phosphorous has five electrons in its outer shell, not four. It still bonds with its silicon neighbor atoms, but in a sense, the phosphorous has one electron that doesn’t have anyone to hold hands with. It doesn’t form part of a bond, but there is a positive proton in the phosphorous nucleus holding it in place.
When energy is added to pure silicon, for example in the form of heat, it can cause a few electrons to break free of their bonds and leave their atoms. A hole is left behind in each case. These electrons then wander randomly around the crystalline lattice looking for another hole to fall into. These electrons are called free carriers, and can carry electrical current. There are so few of them in pure silicon, however, that they aren’t very useful. Our impure silicon with phosphorous atoms mixed in is a different story. It turns out that it takes a lot less energy to knock loose one of our “extra” phosphorous electrons because they aren’t tied up in a bond — their neighbors aren’t holding them back. As a result, most of these electrons do break free, and we have a lot more free carriers than we would have in pure silicon. The process of adding impurities on purpose is called doping, and when doped with phosphorous, the resulting silicon is called N-type (“n” for negative) because of the prevalence of free electrons. N-type doped silicon is a much better conductor than pure silicon is.
Actually, only part of our solar cell is N-type. The other part is doped with boron, which has only three electrons in its outer shell instead of four, to become P-type silicon. Instead of having free electrons, P-type silicon (“p” for positive) has free holes. Holes really are just the absence of electrons, so they carry the opposite (positive) charge. They move around just like electrons do.
The interesting part starts when you put N-type silicon together with P-type silicon. Remember that every PV cell has at least one electric field. Without an electric field, the cell wouldn’t work, and this field forms when the N-type and P-type silicon are in contact. Suddenly, the free electrons in the N side, which have been looking all over for holes to fall into, see all the free holes on the P side, and there’s a mad rush to fill them in.
You can use renewable energy sources since it can be replenished in a short period of time. A the same time you can help the environment. And the best is it will never run out of sources of renewable energy as long as humans will exist. I found this website it says http://fastfreehomeenergy.com/alternative-energy-home.html “Many people (including myself) have reportedly slashed their monthly electricity bill by up to 80% through the methods mentioned above. If we can do it, so can you.”. Just check this out for more details.
I hope i was bale to contribute a bit on your question.
Solar Hot Water
Solar Thermal Electricity
Solar Cells or Photovoltaic Energy
fossil fuels is actually solar energy stored millions and millions of years ago. Indirectly, the sun or other are responsible for all our energy. Even nuclear energy comes from a star because the uranium atomsused in nuclear energy were created in the fury of a nova – a star exploding. Let’s look at ways in which we can use the solar energy.
Indeed, as Jim stated, the light bulb does produce A LOT LESS energy than the sun. The solar radiation gives up to 1,000 watts per square meter, while you almost never have more than 200 watts of light bulbs in one room. And this wattage in only counted on the “electric side”, not on the light side of the light bulb (typical incandescent light bulb produces only about 5% of light and 95% of heat from the electrical power).
Charging anything using solar charger and light from incandescent bulbs or even compact fluorescent lights is not economical nor ecological by any mean!