Solar power systems take the sun's energy and convert it at once into usable electricity through photovoltaic panels mounted on the roof or on the ground. The generated electricity can then be used for heating, cooling, lighting, and to power appliances. Also, the sun's energy can be used thermally to heat your tap water and swimming pool.
The sun's rays can also be harvested to generate electricity on a large scale for consumer use through huge arrays of solar power panels or by a solar energy plant that uses high-intensity heat to drive steam turbines or heat engines to produce electricity for entire communities. The heat creating the steam is produced by using large reflector mirrors (heliostats) to track and focus the sun's rays to heat the water.
Limitations aside, both solar and wind energy, along with other renewable sources of energy can form part of a total electrical power generation plan and strategy.
Both wind and solar power systems are clean, renewable, and considered green. Both can generate electric power without producing harmful byproducts to hasten global warming. This makes them highly desireable to those striving to improve the quality of the environment and reduce the greenhouse effect.
Improvements are continually being made by the solar industry to increase efficiency and lower costs. Even at present, solar and wind can contribute to supplying electrical demand on a cost-effective basis when based on the long-term.
While they cannot yet displace the dirty fossil fuels entirely, as the world supply of non renewable energy resources lessens and its cost steadily increases, the future of solar and wind energy is assured.
Of the two clean energies (wind and solar), installing a few solar power panels is perhaps the easiest, most affordable way for the homeowner to begin generating electrical power on a small scale with a minimum investment. Investing in solar can lower your utility bills now while offering you an excellent return on your investment later.
By using safe, renewable energy to generate heat and electrical power, you have a variety of affordable options for reducing your dependency on outdated fossil fuels. You are doing your part to ensure a better life for your grandchildren and the generations that follow. It's time that we all became good stewards of our environment.
Affordable solar energy for the home is now a reality with many products and resources available to average homeowners who are looking for renewable energy resources to save money and to gain control over the energy needs of their household.
Using renewable green energy produced by the sun to reduce our long dependence on nonrenewable fossil fuels and provide the electricity we need will mean less pollution and a reduction in the harmful emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
People have used various means to tap into the benefits of solar energy for thousands of years, but the time to make practical use of the sun's beneficial rays has come. The solar energy facts don't lie. Solar simply makes good sense.
Every hour the sun beams onto Earth more than enough energy to satisfy global energy needs for an entire year. Solar energy is the technology used to harness the sun's energy and make it useable. Today, the technology produces less than one tenth of one percent of global energy demand.
Many people are familiar with so-called photovoltaic cells, or solar panels, found on things like spacecraft, rooftops, and handheld calculators. The cells are made of semiconductor materials like those found in computer chips. When sunlight hits the cells, it knocks electrons loose from their atoms. As the electrons flow through the cell, they generate electricity.
On a much larger scale, solar thermal power plants employ various techniques to concentrate the sun's energy as a heat source. The heat is then used to boil water to drive a steam turbine that generates electricity in much the same fashion as coal and nuclear power plants, supplying electricity for thousands of people.
In one technique, long troughs of U-shaped mirrors focus sunlight on a pipe of oil that runs through the middle. The hot oil then boils water for electricity generation. Another technique uses moveable mirrors to focus the sun's rays on a collector tower, where a receiver sits. Molten salt flowing through the receiver is heated to run a generator.
Other solar technologies are passive. For example, big windows placed on the sunny side of a building allow sunlight to heat-absorbent materials on the floor and walls. These surfaces then release the heat at night to keep the building warm. Similarly, absorbent plates on a roof can heat liquid in tubes that supply a house with hot water.
Solar energy is lauded as an inexhaustible fuel source that is pollution and often noise free. The technology is also versatile. For example, solar cells generate energy for far-out places like satellites in Earth orbit and cabins deep in the Rocky Mountains as easily as they can power downtown buildings and futuristic cars.
But solar energy doesn't work at night without a storage device such as a battery, and cloudy weather can make the technology unreliable during the day. Solar technologies are also very expensive and require a lot of land area to collect the sun's energy at rates useful to lots of people.
Despite the drawbacks, solar energy use has surged at about 20 percent a year over the past 15 years, thanks to rapidly falling prices and gains in efficiency. Japan, Germany, and the United States are major markets for solar cells. With tax incentives, solar electricity can often pay for itself in five to ten years.