Solar energy as an alternative of Hydrocarbons
![]() Solar energy is the energy from the sun that is converted into thermal energy or electrical energy, some examples that it is used for are lighting, heating water, or insulation. Solar energy is converted to electrical energy or thermal energy by a device called solar panels; they are also referred to as photovoltaic cells. One of the most important parts of a solar panel is silicon; this is what’s used for converting the sunlight into electrical energy. Sunlight is made up of small particles called photons, when these photons hit the solar panels they transfer their energy to the loose electrons of the silicon, which gets knocked clean off the atom, these electrons are the electricity created, but these electrons needs to be herded as they are all scattered around. The solar panels have 2 types of silicones, the n-type silicones and the p-type silicones, the n-type electrons has spare electrons while the p-type has missing electrons, when these two are side by side, they create an imbalance, attracting towards each other due to he positive and negative carge, thus creating an electrical flow, this is how the solar panel works by converting sunlight energy into electrical energy. This is called the photovoltaic effect, which is the turning of sunlight into electricity by using the p-n charge. However, there are other things that we need to know about. Note: The picture above shows the process of converting sunlight into energy, including the p-n charge. http://1iwl1xwtnbr42ywvz31tjae3.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/solar-panel-diagram-large.jpg
Even though solar panels are quite famous now and their existence helps the environment, it has a lot of creators. There are quite a few who contributed in its creation, one of them was Cesar Becquerel who is credited for the solar panels research where he found the photovoltaic effect (the turning of sunlight into electrical energy)when he was doing an experiment of putting a solid electrode into an electrolyte solution. When sunlight fell upon the electrode, he also saw a voltage; this was what inspired the solar panels to be created. The solar panels were first created by Charles Fritts, but the first solar panels created were extremely inefficient as the energy received from the sunlight was under 1%. The first person who patented the solar cell was Russell Ohl. However, there were 3 American inventors: Gerald Pearson, Calvin Fuller, and Daryl Chaplin who were able to create a solar panel that created an energy amount of 6%. Most of us know solar panels just as it is, but there are different types of solar panels. The first type of panels is the single silicon solar panels, these panels are the most efficient panels, so they create the most energy when sunlight hits them than the other types. Even though they are more expensive than others, only a few of them is needed to make a lot of energy. The next type is the multi-silicon solar panels; they have a lower silicone level than the single silicon panels, so they are cheaper, but at the same time they create less energy, but this can all be made up due to their construction design which is good for roofs. The next type of solar panels is the BIPV panels which are the Building integrated photovoltaic; they look like roofing tiles, so they look good. But they are also expensive, and they are less efficient than the usual PV solar panels. The last bad impact is that they might not last as long as the other panels. The last type of solar panels is the solar thermal panels, they have nothing to do electricity, but they heat you water for your water tank or for your pool, instead of paying your gas company to heat them. Another thing we should know about solar panels is about its cost. Even though solar panels are really environmental friendly and very beneficial, we have to take its cost into consideration, and many people think that solar panels are too expensive to be useful. With the tax, installation costs and the solar panels itself, the cost is quite expensive due to their large size and large voltage capacity. An average is $4.72 per watt, but the price will go lower every year as new technology is created every year to lower the cost. And if we calculate carefully, the price will go much lower than we expect. For example, the price of a 5 KW solar installation will cost around $23,600. But with rebates, the cost will go down up to around $7,000-$15,000. And if we consider the energy that we receive and save, it will go lower, so the solar panels are probably not cost effective, as we have to start with a lot of money, but as time passes, the money we spend will come back slowly, so we will save more money than spend after installing the solar panels. When it comes to solar panels we also have take the energy output into mind, if it creates more energy than Hydrocarbons or not. The average energy output of a solar panel is 200W while the output of one coal fire generator is around 660 MW, so even though solar energy is more eco-friendly, the output of solar energy is much less than the output of coal. The ratio of volume to energy of fossil fuels is much higher than any other alternatives, in other words, only a bit of coal is needed to create a lot of energy. Lastly, it would be good to know what the countries that are using solar energy are, or more specific, what are the top 10 countries that use solar energy (the countries that use them the most). In the world, there are quite a few countries that use solar panels. But in the top 10 countries with the most energy output in the world is Germany, China, Italy, Japan, US, Spain, France, Australia, Belgium, UK. The lowest output in the top 10 is 2.9 GW in UK, while the country with the highest output is Germany who creates 35.5 GW. In these countries, the amount of energy created increases every year as more solar panels are made. These countries have the solar panels placed in different places. Some are placed in large fields where the solar panels are installed on the ground. Other common placements are solar panels installed on roofs. Some are solar panel satellites, and some use the solar panels as their rooftop tiles than just installing solar panels on the rooftop as a structure itself, which is known as the BIPV panels which can be seen on the right side of this page. |
Monocrystaline and Polycrystaline solar panels.
http://yorksolar.ca/images/monocrystalline-polycrystalline-2.jpg BIPV solar cells. http://pureenergies.com/us/how-solar-works/types-of-solar-panels/
Solar thermal panels. http://pureenergies.com/us/how-solar-works/types-of-solar-panels/
Left to Right: Cesar Becquerel, Russel Ohl, Charles Fritts. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Antoine_Becquerel_2.jpg, http://apollotech1.weebly.com/uploads/1/7/3/7/17377569/1579237.jpg, http://www.name-list.net/img/images.php/Fritts_2.jpg
Example of solar panels (UK), http://pureenergies.com/us/blog/top-10-countries-using-solar-power/
These pictures above are examples of solar panels, the inventors, and the types of solar panels.
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