Wind Generators For Sale

Unless you have been living under a stone recently you will have noticed that Oil prices are going up almost every day. That’s not just bad news for motorists though, for the list of things that are made from oil is unbelievably long. Everything from cosmetics to carrier bags, food, paint and plastics; the list just goes on and on. Apart from the price of gas, though, most of us will notice the rising price of oil being reflected in higher utility bills. But help is at hand from an unlikely source – the sun. Thanks to some clever technology we can now use solar cell power to provide us with electricity to heat our homes and power our lights.

Solar cells have been around for many years now – probably much longer than you think, but it is only with today’s advances in technology and, of course the rising oil price, that solar cell power is becoming economically viable. Previous solar cell designs didn’t produce much in the way of electricity for the surface area they took up. They were expensive to produce, and most of them didn’t work efficiently in anything less than direct sunlight.

Today’s solar cells, however, thanks to advances in material technology, and electronic control systems are much more efficient. It is now possible to generate sufficient solar cell power to heat water for your washing and bathing, if not your central heating, on even cloudy days. Solar cells are obviously most efficient in direct bright sunlight, but this is no longer a necessity.

Solar cell power is best suited to producing hot water. This hot water can then be stored and used for bathing and cooking etc, or it can power your central heating, although it is often necessary to supplement the solar cell power with a conventional electricity supply, especially in larger houses. Normal hot water heaters often consume almost a half of a house’s energy. Therefore, by replacing a gas or electrically powered hot water heater with a solar cell power heater you can significantly reduce your energy bill. In some states you may even qualify for tax relief on such a system considerably, as well as making the owners eligible for a tax cut in select states.

Todays solar power cells are also becoming cheaper. For the price of a years utility bills, it is now possible to build a solar power system for your house that will give a lifetimes supply of free electricity with virtually no maintenance.

By: Dave Simpson

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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.

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. 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.

By: Anna

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