HIGHT VOLTAGE ENGINEERING

                Solar Power Energy

Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of ever-evolving technologies such as solar heating, photovoltaics, solar thermal energy, solar architecture, molten salt power plants and artificial photosynthesis.

Solar power is clean green electricity that is either created from sunlight or from heat from the sun. Having solar electricity in your home usually means setting up a solar photovoltaic system on your roof. Discover more in our solar energy education sections ahead.

Definition of photovoltaic: Photo = “light” and photons = energy particles coming from sunlight; voltaic = producing a voltage or volts.  Abbreviation = PV

Solar system could go haywire before the Sun dies. How will life on Earth end? The answer, of course, is unknown, but two new studies suggest a collision with Mercury or Mars could doom life long before the Sun swells into a red giant and bakes the planet to a crisp in about 5 billion yearsIf Earth is not destroyed by the expanding red giant Sun in 7.6 billion years and not ejected from its orbit by a stellar encounter, its ultimate fate will be that it collides with the black dwarf Sun due to the decay of its orbit via gravitational radiation, in 10²⁰ (100 quintillion) years.

the sun will eventually burn out. But not for a long, long time. The sun has used up about half of its hydrogen fuel in the last 4.6 billion years, since its birth. It still has enough hydrogen to last about another 5 billion years.

This law means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed from one form to another. For instance, chemical energy is converted to kinetic energy when a stick of dynamite explodes.

 

If we add the amount of solar energy that is absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere, land and oceans every year, we end up with approximately 3,850,000 EJ (exajoules or 10^18 joules).

To put it in more understandable terms, this amount of energy is equivalent to:

• 2.7 million earthquakes of the same size as the Tohoku earthquake in Japan (2011).
• 40 000 times the total energy consumption in the United States
• 8 000 times the total consumption in the whole world.
• About 40% of the energy that is required to heat the entire volume of water we have on Earth by 1°Celsius

Unfortunately, harnessing all this energy is not achievable. Here’s an overview that illustrates the potential of solar power more realistically:

Let me get one thing clear: Solar power is certainly greener than conventional ways of harnessing energy sources such as fossil fuels and coal.

On the other hand, there are issues regarding manufacturing of the solar panels, as well as disposal and recycling of byproducts. Where does the solar panel end up when it is no longer usable? (Most solar panels for home only have a warranty of 25 years).

Emissions of greenhouse gases do take place during the manufacturing. Dangerous climate gases such as nitrogen trifluorideand sulfur hexafluoride are both on the list. These literally have many thousand times the impact on global warming as an equal amount of carbon dioxide would.

Solar Energy is Nuclear Fusion

Nuclear power is a term we use to describe ways to harness energy through nuclear fission and fusion processes. Conventional nuclear reactors rely on the fission of uranium atoms to produce heat, which we use to generate electricity. Nuclear fission processes releases vast amounts of heat, but is still far from the potential of fusion, the exact same phenomena that powers the Sun (as well as other stars).

In physics, energy is the quantitative property that must be transferred to an object in order to perform work on, or to heat, the object

• 1)The idea of solar energy was first recognized in 1880 when Charles Fritts constructed a prototype of the first solar cell.
• 2)A Solar Cell is a device that converts light into electric current.
• 3)Solar Cells are also called Photovoltaic cells and the process that turns light into electricity is called the Photovoltaic Effect.
• 4)Henri Becquerel discovered the Photovoltaic Effect.
• 5)A collection of Solar Cells makes up a Solar Panel.
• 6)The largest operating solar thermal power station is located in the Mojave Desert in California, USA. It covers 1000 acres.
• 7)Space missions have been using solar energy to power spaceships since 1958, including the International Space Station.
• 8)There are no harmful emissions from Photovoltaic equipment, making it environmentally superior to other electricity generating processes being used.
• 9)Over the last 15 years, the use of solar energy has risen by 20% due to improvements in efficiency and decreases in cost.
• 10)The Solar Panels required will be your only expense. The energy can be produced for free .                                    Solar-powered photovoltaic (PV) panelsconvert the sun's rays into electricity by exciting electrons in silicon cells using the photons of light from the sun. This electricity can then be used to supply renewable energyto your home or business                                                           When we capture the Sun's energy using solar panels, this is Photovoltaic or PV solar. Solar panels work by using the sun's light to make electricity. Each solar panel is made up of many small solar cells and when the light of the sun hits those cells, an electric current is made or electricity