Appreciating The Importance Of Solar Panel Efficiency



by Nathan Thompson


From the sun, about 3,850,000 exajoules of energy coming from sun is received by earth. This solar energy is free energy for our planet. A total of 174 petawatts of radiation is absorbed by the planet earth. Clouds, soil and water retain about 70% of radiation while the remaining 30% bounces back to space.

Ever since the ancient times, the heat that comes from the sun has been very useful to people. The solar energy is a free energy for mankind. Through this natural source, we save from using fuel and other means of power source that cost too much.

The heat from sun that reaches our planet is twice as much as the amount of power that will be harnessed for a very long time from natural gas, coal and oil. Due to this advantage, modern solar technologies are presently being used to harness power. Some solar applications used nowadays are water heating, heating and cooling architectures, electricity production, cells powered satellites and for industrial purposes.

Passive sun heating is now commonly designed for a lot of buildings. Buildings are structured with large windows that are composed of materials that can absorb heat. The collected heat is then stored to the building's wall and floors. When it is cold, the walls and floors give off heat. With this free source of power, building owners are able to save their money from paying electric bills.

Power plants are also taking advantage of sun power. Before they use fossil fuels but now they use power systems from sun heat. These include the parabolic-through, powered tower and dish.

With the use of tilted curved mirrors, parabolic-through collect energy from the sun. Pipes with oil are being focused on with light and heat. The oil heats the water used in generators. The generators in turn produce electricity. Mirrors are also used to collect light for the dish system and power tower system in order to generate electricity.

Heat coming from the collector may also be used to cool a building. Like an air conditioner, cooling systems use sun heat as a source of power. Evaporative coolers also can make use of the sun for its power source.

Water heating with the use of this heat is also another application which uses glass panels to collect heat. Glass panels are placed on roofs where pipes with water are pumped from the bottom in order to propel the hot water from the top. This way gas or electricity is saved.

And lastly, our everyday use of satellite TV, telephones, internet and navigation systems make use of sun as well. In order to run satellites that orbit our planet, sun cells are utilized as a natural source of power. Once again, we are using heat from the sun as our free source of power.

Solar energy is a free energy source of power. In the olden times and until now, we have used the sun to dry our clothes and even dry our food. However, only a small amount of this unlimited natural resource is used. But with mankind's development of new technologies, we are able to fully make use of this resource. And we are all enjoying this for free.






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