Solar Energy

 

If you’re wondering what is solar energy, you’re not alone. The sun’s energy is enormous and traveling to earth at nearly eighty-six thousand miles per second, it is incredibly powerful. One part of this energy hits the earth every two billion years, which means that the solar energy we receive is massive. Yet a lot of people don’t realize the power of this energy, which makes it an important topic to understand.

Photovoltaic panels

Photovoltaic panels convert sunlight into direct current electricity that can power your electronics and recharge a battery. These devices are primarily used as part of grid-connected systems, but they can also be used stand-alone for remote dwellings and homes, as well as for cathodic protection of pipelines. Photovoltaic panels need protection from the environment, so they’re packaged inside solar modules.

Solar thermal systems

In the 1980s, commercial concentrating solar power plants were developed in the United States. The world’s largest solar thermal power plants are the 370 MW Ivanpah Solar Power Facility and the 354 MW SEGS CSP installation in the Mojave Desert. The Shams solar power station in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates was built in 2013. All other 100 MW and larger CSP plants are located in the United States and Spain.

Concentrating solar power plants

A recent report released by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory focuses on concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies. The purpose of this study is to develop a set of best practices for CSP systems. While a few of these best practices are universal, it is important to note that each of these technologies has a number of design variations. For example, a single CSP plant may produce as much as 10 megawatts of power or even more. The amount of power generated by a CSP plant will depend on the available sunlight and the amount of heat rejection in the system.

Direct and diffuse components

In order to calculate the amount of solar energy a plant can receive from a given surface, we need to understand the differences between the direct and diffuse components of solar energy. While the global radiation that reaches a surface is measured by using the G-value, we need to distinguish the direct component from the diffuse component to derive accurate estimates for different solar energy systems. The diffuse component, also known as multiple component radiation, is the amount of energy that is absorbed or reflected by the surfaces of plants, such as trees and plants.

Costs

The initial cost of installing a solar panel system can be as low as $80 per watt, although premium models can cost up to $1.25 per watt. This price difference has narrowed in recent years thanks to U.S. Commerce Department tariffs on imports from China, which have artificially low prices and government-subsidized solar factories. This difference in price is likely to remain small for a long time, however, as the cost of installing a solar panel system is predicted to fall to $.46 per watt by 2018.