The Energy Behind Solar Lights
There are quite a lot of people in the world that use solar lights, perhaps you’re one of those people. Have you stop to think about how it works? What is the significance of solar energy? Well, it is basically a form of renewable energy (i.e. energy that is generated from natural resources). Other examples of renewable energy include wind power, wave power, hydroelectricity, geothermal power, biomass (e.g. wood burning), biofuel and tidal power. At the moment, solar energy isn’t as popular as the other renewable energy out there.
Solar power involves capturing and harnessing the light from the Sun. So yes, the Sun can be more useful than just a way to get a tan during the summer seasons. There are two ways to convert sunlight into useable electricity – either the direct method or the indirect method. Firstly, the direct method is photovoltaics (PV). It involves using solar cells to collect the sunlight and convert to direct current electricity. So to get the most out of PV systems, you want the panels to face the sun as long as possible during the day. Solar trackers were developed to allow the panels to move with the sun. One major advantage of using PV systems is that they do not need much maintenance over several years of operation once they are set up. From a cost perspective, although the initial capital cost may be relatively significant, the running cost is very low in comparison to the other current technologies available. The second method is the concentrating solar power system (or CSP system). The way this type of solar power works is that mirrors (or lenses) in combination with tracking systems are able to focus a large surface area of sunlight into a concentrated small beam. This then becomes a heat source for conventional power plants.
There are two general categories for solar technologies. This categorization is based on the way the sunlight is captured (or absorbed), converted followed by distribution. The first type is active solar. Here, the sunlight is collected via photovoltaic panels (as described earlier) or solar thermal collectors (either flat plates or lenses to capture heat) and converted into a useable energy source. As for the passive solar method, it avoids using active mechanical systems. It just involves choosing materials which have a favorable thermal mass or can disperse light well, or positioning buildings to face the Sun.
Posted: September 1st, 2009 under Introduction.
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