subject: Solar Introduce: How Does Solar Power Work? [print this page] Basic principles of solar energy. Basic principles of solar energy.
Solar Power is most likely the cleanest, most practical type of renewable energy obtainable and also it can be used in a number of forms to help power your home. Numerous gardens today use solar lights or solar garden water features. The accessibility as well as wide use of solar energy in gardens shows just how versatile it is as a source of power. The technology and the systems have become smaller, more compact and also better looking compared to when they were first developed and utilized. Early samples of solar energy systems can be observed in California where, in the 1980s, enough solar energy panels were installed to power over 10 million homes.
How do photovoltaic tiles function?
To put it simply photovoltaic tiles along with other forms of solar energy work by converting some of the energy in sunlight in to a clean form of electrical power that can be used in your houses. The PV cells include a positive and a negative slice of silicon positioned under a thin slice of glass. Since the protons of the sunlight beat down onto the PV cell they knock the neutrons from the silicon. The negatively charged free neutrons are attracted to the silicon but are trapped by the magnetic field that is formed from the opposing fields. Little wires on the silicon catch these neutrons and when linked in a circuit an electric current is formed.
This reaction provides Direct Current electricity though, and it should be passed via an inverter to be transformed in to an Alternating Current used in our homes to power any kind of electric items. A few of the power is lost with this part of the process as the inverter is only close to 95% efficient however it is a a lot higher efficiency than was once available.
The dynamics of the PV cell means there is minimum maintenance necessary and there are no moving parts; which means that a typical Photovoltaic cell could last as much as 40 years without any work besides an annual clean.
How can I use them to power our house?
There are many methods to make use of solar energy around the house and not only for powering. You can use this to heat your hot water, heat your swimming pool or even your own central heating or even if you have lots of roof space and a reasonable quantity of sunlight you may get a grid tie system; a grid tie system indicates that not only can you power your whole house but during those times when you produce an excess of electrical power you are able to sell it back to the grid. An efficiently solar powered house can reasonably produce between 75 and 100% of their own power and because of the grid tie system this implies you may well not need to pay for electrical power ever again.
