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Solar energy
Bright days for Solar
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What is solar energy?
Types of solar panels
Components of solar cells
The effect and problems facing solar cell
components
The effect and advantages of solar cells
The advantages of solar energy
The disadvantages of solar energy
Observations and conclusions
References
What is solar energy?
 Solar energy refers to the energy collected from
sunlight. Solar energy can be captured by solar
panels. Solar power is obtained from sunlight
through solar panels, which converts the energy in
sunlight into electricity. saferenvironment,.(2009).
Types of solar energy
There are 2 main types of solar panels
which uses complete different
technologies to make use of the
energy from the sun:
 Solar Water Heating collectors: These
panels absorbs the energy from the
sun and transfer it to heat water.
 Photovoltaic or solar electric panels:
These panels transform the solar
radiation directly into electricity.
Components of solar cells
 Semiconductor-based components in solar cells
are mostly made up of Silicon, which is a lousy
material for solar cells, because it doesn‘t absorb
light as well as some other semiconductors, that
converts light into electricity in solar panel. A
relatively thick slab of Silicon is needed to
generate useful amount of electricity.
Example of a solar silicon cell.
Theron Parlin,. (2009).
The effect and problems facing solar cell components
 Silicon frees electrons, when it absorbs energy through
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light.
They can be trapped by defects and impurities in the
material.
It must be made as defect free and pure as possible , which
is an expensive proposition .
Solar panels which converts the energy in sunlight into
electricity, are so expensive and inefficient that they now
produce just a fraction of 1% of the world‘s power.
The Chip Industry spends $1,000 per gram on clean
manufacturing processes to keep it‘s silicon pure.
Solar-cell companies are limited to less than a Dollar per
gram.
The effect and advantages of solar cells
 Silicons are extremely abundant, second only to
oxygen in the earth‘s crust.
 Solar cells performs better under concentrated
light, converting a higher percentage of photons
into electricty.
The advantages of solar energy
 It is economical
 The potential of solar power is enormous, in just
over one hour, it could supply enough energy from
the sun,to reach the earth to meet the world‘s
needs for an entire year
The disadvantages of solar energy
 It is expensive to build a solar system
 It involves lots of time
 Even if solar panels become extremely cheap and
efficient, they still have a problem, they reach
their peak power output for only a few hours a day
and don't work at all at night.
Observations and conclusions
 By focusing on ways to minimize the impact of impurities,
manufacturers would have to consider making solar cells out of
cheaper, dirtier silicon. And cheaper raw materials combined
with greater production capacity would put solar power in a
better position to become a major source of electricity.
 Also by developing ways to use sunlight to split water into
hydrogen and oxygen, electricity can be generated in a fuel cell
recombination.
 Solar power can be made cheap as power from coal through the
use of organic light – emitting diodes as pixels and also the use
of curved lenses can gather sunlight from a large area and direct
it to a small solar cell, enabling a fraction as much semi
conductor materials to absorb the same amount of light.
References
 Kevin Bullis,. (2008,September/October ). Bright Days for
Solar
 New investment fuels promising energy research at MIT.
Technology review, SM 05. Retrieved December 10, 2009, from
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=21179&c
h=specialsections&sc=solar&pg=1
 Theron Parlin,. (2009). DIY Solar Panels. Retrieved July 7, 2009,
12:47 pm, from
http://reasoninmadness.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/diy-solarpanels/
 saferenvironment,. (2009). Solar power – Sustainable green
energy to protect our economy and environment:. Retrieved
February 2, 2009 , from
http://saferenvironment.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/solarpower-%E2%80%93-sustainable-green-energy-to-protect-oureconomy-and-environment/