SOLAR ENERGY Solar energy is power from the sun's rays that reach the earth.

Using photovoltaic cells made from silicon alloys, sunlight can be converted into other forms of energy, such as heat and electricity. Steam generators using thermal collectors to heat a fluid, such as water, sometimes convert even higher amounts of solar energy into electricity. Furthermore, it represents a clean alternative to the fossil fuels that currently pollute our air and water, threaten our public health, and contribute to global warming.

Advantages of Solar Energy

Advantages

Solar energy is free - it needs no fuel and produces no waste or pollution. In sunny countries, solar power can be used where there is no easy way to get electricity to a remote place. Handy for low-power uses such as solar powered garden lights and battery chargers, or for helping your home energy bills.

Solar Energy has more advantages than you can point out the disadvantages. When it comes to considering solar power as mainstay source of energy for home and industrial settings, it beats all other conventional sources of energy. Once the initial cost of installation is met, the electricity generated by solar panels is free of cost. In a stand-alone solar power system you dont have to pay any utility bills. Another positive in installing solar power systems is that government offers lots of rebates and incentives to cover the initial cost. You can also sell the additional electricity generated by your system. Sometimes the utility company will give you credits for selling the excess amount of electricity. Another good thing about solar power is that the cost of the technology is decreasing almost every few months and the efficiency is improving significantly. Today, you can find different types of solar solutions that are more convenient to install. Solar Energy is a renewable and clean source of energy and you dont have to pay any transmission cost. This is because the energy would be produced and consumed at the same place. Depending upon your budget, you can get all or a part of your electricity requirements fulfilled by solar energy. When batteries are used in the system to store electricity you can become entirely independent of the grid. This also means that you dont have to get bothered by power failures in the grid, as you would be able to enjoy seamless supply of electricity. Disadvantages of Solar Energy

Disadvantages

Doesn't work at night. Very expensive to build solar power stations, although the cost is coming down as technology improves. In the meantime, solar cells cost a great deal compared to the amount of electricity they'll produce in their lifetime. Can be unreliable unless you're in a very sunny climate. In the United Kingdom, solar power isn't much use for high-power applications, as you need a large area of solar

panels to get a decent amount of power. However, technology has now reached the point where it can make a big difference to your home fuel bills..

Even though Solar Energy has several disadvantages, they are not major in degree and the benefits of this renewable source of energy far outweigh them. The initial cost of the installation and equipment is high. When you compare fossil fuel technology with solar power technology, the former will seem to be far more affordable. Even though Solar Energy is being used at an increasing rate, the initial costs dont encourage the maximum users to switch to this renewable source of energy. If there is shortage of space for installing solar panels, you would not be able to generate sufficient amount of Solar Energy required to meet your electricity requirements. Considering all these factors, it doesnt require much judgment to see that solar energy is the mainstay of energy requirement in both households and industries, both in the future and in the next few years. It is only a matter of time before Solar Energy technology becomes easily affordable to make this untapped and unending source of energy a common phenomenon in every household.

Application of solar energy In the broadest sense, solar energy supports all life on Earth and is the basis for almost every form of energy we use. The sun makes plants grow, which can be burned as "biomass" fuel or, if left to rot in swamps and compressed underground for millions of years, in the form of coal and oil. Heat from the sun causes temperature differences between areas, producing wind that can power turbines. Water evaporates because of the sun, falls on high elevations, and rushes down to the sea, spinning hydroelectric turbines as it passes. But solar energy usually refers to ways the sun's energy can be used to directly generate heat, lighting, and electricity. How Solar Energy works The Solar Resource The amount of energy from the sun that falls on Earth's surface is enormous. All the energy stored in Earth's reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas is matched by the energy from just 20 days of sunshine. Outside Earth's atmosphere, the sun's energy contains about 1,300 watts per square meter. About one-third of this light is reflected back into space, and some is absorbed by the atmosphere (in part causing winds to blow). By the time it reaches Earth's surface, the energy in sunlight has fallen to about 1,000 watts per square meter at noon on a cloudless day. Averaged over the entire surface of the planet, 24 hours per day for a year, each square meter collects the approximate energy equivalent of almost a barrel of oil each year, or 4.2 kilowatt-hours of energy every day. Deserts, with very

dry air and little cloud cover, receive the most sunmore than six kilowatt-hours per day per square meter. Northern climates, such as Boston, get closer to 3.6 kilowatt-hours. Sunlight varies by season as well, with some areas receiving very little sunshine in the winter. Seattle in December, for example, gets only about 0.7 kilowatt-hours per day. It should also be noted that these figures represent the maximum available solar energy that can be captured and used, but solar collectors capture only a portion of this, depending on their efficiency. For example, a one square meter solar electric panel with an efficiency of 15 percent would produce about one kilowatt-hour of electricity per day in Arizona.

Passive Solar Design for Buildings One simple, obvious use of the sun is to light and heat our buildings. Residential and commercial buildings account for more than one-third of U.S. energy use.1 If properly designed, buildings can capture the sun's heat in the winter and minimize it in the summer, while using daylight year-round. Buildings designed in such a way utilize passive solar energya resource that can be tapped without mechanical means to help heat, cool, or light a building. Simple design features such as properly orienting a house toward the south, putting most windows on the south side of the building, skylights, awnings, and shade trees are all techniques for exploiting passive solar energy. Buildings constructed with the sun in mind can be comfortable and beautiful places to live and work. Solar Heat Collectors Besides using design features to maximize their use of the sun, some buildings have systems that actively gather and store solar energy. Solar collectors, for example, sit on the rooftops of buildings to collect solar energy for space heating, water heating, and space cooling. Most are large, flat boxes painted black on the inside and covered with glass. In the most common design, pipes in the box carry liquids that transfer the heat from the box into the building. This heated liquidusually a water-alcohol mixture to prevent freezingis used to heat water in a tank or is passed through radiators that heat the air. Oddly enough, solar heat can also power a cooling system. In desiccant evaporators, heat from a solar collector is used to pull moisture out of the air. When the air becomes drier, it also becomes cooler. The hot moist air is separated from the cooler air and vented to the outside. Another approach is an absorption chiller. Solar energy is used to heat a refrigerant under pressure; when the pressure is released, it expands, cooling the air around it. This is how conventional refrigerators and air conditioners work, and it's a particularly efficient approach for home or office cooling since buildings need cooling during the hottest part of the day. These systems are currently at work in humid southeastern climates such as Florida. Solar collectors were quite popular in the early 1980s, in the aftermath of the energy crisis. Federal tax credits for residential solar collectors also helped. In 1984, for example, 16 million square feet of collectors were sold in the United States, but when fossil fuel prices dropped and tax credits expired in the mid-1980s, demand for solar collectors plummeted. By

1987, sales were down to only four million square feet. Most of the more than one million solar collectors sold in the 1980s were used for heating hot tubs and swimming pools. Today, a small number of U.S. homes and businesses use solar water heaters.2 In other countries, solar collectors are much more common; Israel requires all new homes and apartments to use solar water heating, and 92 percent of the existing homes in Cyprus already have solar water heaters. But the number of Americans choosing solar hot water could rise dramatically in the next few years as a result of federal tax incentives that can reduce their cost by as much as 30 percent. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, water heating accounts for about 15 percent of the average household's energy use.3 As natural gas and electricity prices rise, the costs of maintaining a constant hot water supply will increase as well. Homes and businesses that heat their water through solar collectors could end up saving as much as $250 to $500 per year depending on the type of system being replaced.

Solar Water Heating Today, most American homes and businesses use natural gas, electricity, or oil to provide them with hot water. The amount of energy required to meet our hot water needs is not insignificant. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), heating water today accounts for up to 14 percent of the average household's energy use, and nearly four percent of total U.S. energy consumption. With electricity and natural gas prices continuing to rise, the costs of having a constant supply of hot water can really add up. Solar water heating (SWH) technologies are a simple, reliable, and cost-effective method of harnessing the sun's energy to provide for the energy needs of homes and businesses. Simply stated, SWH systems collect the energy from the sun to heat air or a fluid. The air or fluid then transfers solar heat directly or indirectly to your water supply. Though these systems have been in use for centuries, with today's technological advances, SWH technologies can be operated efficiently and affordably in any climate. Systems are specifically designed for various climatic and geographical areas of the country. Regions with temperatures that fall below freezing require the use of an indirect or drain-back system, while warmer, sunnier climates can use a direct system, which directly heats the water to be used. SWH systems also provide an important opportunity to reduce our nation's growing demand for energy from fossil fuels. By installing a SWH system, a typical household can meet 50 to 80 percent of their hot water needs. In warm and sunny climates like Hawaii, a SWH unit can meet 100 percent of a household's hot water needs. Reduced demand for fossil fuels will improve the environment by reducing air and water pollution as well as the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming. And though they cost a little bit more up front to install, a SWH system will save consumers money in the long run as the fuel source (the sun's energy) will always be free.

Currently there are more than 300,000 SWH units installed across the United States (excluding swimming pool applications). While the number of installations continues to grow by the thousands every year, there still exists an enormous untapped market with great potential for reducing a significant portion of our nation's energy use. Continue reading below to learn more about solar water heating systems and another clean energy technology for heating your home or business, the geothermal heat pump. Links to additional and more detailed information about these technologies can also be found below.

Homes such as this one use solar water heaters to supply most of the hot-water needs for the household. Photo credit: Eugene Water & Electric Board. Basics of Solar Water Heating The most popular type of solar collector for water heating is the flat panel design (other types include evacuated-tube, concentrating, and integral collector storage). A flat panel collector is an insulated weatherproof enclosure with an absorber plate, flow tubes, and a transparent cover. The transparent cover allows solar energy to pass through and be absorbed by the absorber and flow tubes. The heat generated is then transferred to the fluid circulating through the flow tubes. Once the solar energy is collected, it is commonly employed with the pumped indirect SWH system. Best suited for colder climates, an indirect system pumps heat-transfer fluids (usually a non-toxic propylene glycol-water antifreeze mixture) through collectors, and then transfers the heated fluid from the collectors to a storage tank. Heat exchangers transfer the heat from the fluid to the household water stored in the tanks. Water stored within the tank is then heated when the fluid passes through a heat exchanger located inside the storage tank. Antifreeze fluid is used to prevent collector piping from freezing and allow for the maximum

transfer of heat from the solar collector to the storage tank. Many indirect system designs also incorporate an external heat exchanger. The drain-back system is another common cold climate system. With this system, the water in the collectors and exposed piping drains into an insulated drain-back reservoir tank each time the pump shuts off. Removing all water from the collectors and piping when the system is not collecting heat provides a fail-safe method of ensuring that collectors and the collector loop piping never freeze.

In warmer climates, direct systems are more commonly used. The direct system circulates potable water directly through the solar collector into the storage tank. In other words, the water that is used in the house is the same water that has circulated through the solar collector. These systems incorporate various strategies to control the operation of the circulating pump, which can include photovoltaic or differential controllers. Passive direct systems are also used in warmer climates. The unique characteristic of these systems is that they do not use pumps or other electrical components, thereby providing a simple and reliable system. The most common passive systems are the thermosiphon (see diagram below) and integral collector storage systems. Indirect thermosiphon systems could also be used in colder climates.

A thermosiphon solar water heater requires neither pump nor controller. Cold water from the city water line flows directly to the tank on the roof. Solar heated water flows from the rooftop tank to the auxiliary tank installed at ground level whenever water is used within the residence. (Diagram courtesy of Florida Solar Energy Center)

Solar water heating systems typically cost between $2,000 and $5,000 installed, depending on the type and size of system. Some state governments and local utilities may offer rebates or other financial incentives to help reduce the costs (see below). With regular inspection, the system will operate for 20 to 30 years with minimal maintenance and costs.

Solar Water Heating for Swimming Pools

In order to maintain swimming pool temperatures during different seasons, homeowners and businesses may want to invest in solar water heating systems. Conventional natural gas and electric heaters are available for heating swimming pools, but they can be costly and inefficient. By comparison, SWH systems for swimming pools are cost competitive, primarily because the fuel source is free and the operating costs are low. A typical solar pool heating system can range from $2,000 to $4,000, depending on variable factors such as ease of installation, state codes and safety requirements, and access to financing. The investment, however, is well worth the effort as a SWH system for a pool can pay for itself in just 2 to 4 years when you account for the energy bill savings. Solar pool heating systems are also highly reliable and generally maintenance free. Solar heating systems are available for both in-ground and aboveground pools. They are effective because swimming pools require a low temperature heat source, which a relatively small solar collector can easily provide. Most SWH systems for pools include a solar collector, filter, pump, and flow control valve. Pool water is first pumped through the filter. Then it flows through the solar collector where it is heated before returning to the pool. Some systems offer manual automatic sensor valves that can send water through the collector when the collector temperature is greater than the pool temperature, or bypass the collector when its temperature is similar to the pool water. In particularly hot climates, passing pool water through the solar collectors during the evening hours can serve as a cooling mechanism. Utility and Policy Support for Solar Water Heating Systems

Some electric utility companies have recognized the generation-offset capability of SWH and have designed programs to increase demand for their installation. For example, from 1996 to 2004 the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) has seen more than 25,000 SWH systems installed within its customer base. These systems have reduced the utility's demand by a total of 12.7 megawattsenough electricity to power approximately 18,000 typical U.S. homes. However the potential for SWH usage is not limited to temperate climates like Hawaii. In Oregon, SWH systems qualify for tax credits and local utilities are providing zero interest loans for installation. To see what programs and incentives are available in your area, check the North Carolina Solar Center's Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy. SWH also has a role to play in utility "green" energy programs. For example, Lakeland Electric, a municipal utility in Florida, has a unique arrangement for its customers. The utility installs and owns about 60 residential SWH systems in the community. The utility meters the SWH output and bills customers for the solar-heated water. The utility retains ownership of the "green" attributes (referred to as renewable energy certificates or RECs) associated with the solar equipment. In October 2004, Lakeland sold some of these credits to another Florida utility for use in its green pricing program.

Solar Thermal Concentrating Systems By using mirrors and lenses to concentrate the rays of the sun, solar thermal systems can produce very high temperaturesas high as 3,000 degrees Celsius. This intense heat can be used in industrial applications or to produce electricity. One of the greatest benefits of large scale solar thermal systems is the possibility of storing the suns heat energy for later use, which allows the production of electricity even when the sun is no longer shining. Properly sized storage systems, commonly consisting of molten salts, can transform a solar plant into a supplier of continuous baseload electricity. Solar thermal systems now in development will be able to compete in output and reliability with large coal and nuclear plants.

Solar concentrators come in three main designs: parabolic troughs, parabolic dishes, and central receivers. The most common is parabolic troughslong, curved mirrors that concentrate sunlight on a liquid inside a tube that runs parallel to the mirror. The liquid, at about 300 degrees Celsius, runs to a central collector, where it produces steam that drives an electric turbine.

Parabolic trough concentrators. Source: NREL

Parabolic dish concentrators are similar to trough concentrators, but focus the sunlight on a single point. Dishes can produce much higher temperatures, and so, in principle, should produce electricity more efficiently. A promising variation on dish concentrating technology uses a stirling engine to produce power. Unlike a car's internal combustion engine, in which gasoline exploding inside the engine produces heat that causes the air inside the engine to expand and push out on the pistons, a stirling engine produces heat by way of mirrors that reflect sunlight on the outside of the engine. These dish-stirling generators produce about 30 kilowatts of power, and can be used to replace diesel generators in remote locations. The third type of concentrator system is a central receiver. One such plant in California features a "power tower" design in which a 17-acre field of mirrors concentrates sunlight on the top of an 80-meter tower. The intense heat boils water, producing steam that drives a 10megawatt generator at the base of the tower. The first version of this facility, Solar One, operated from 1982 to 1988 but had a number of problems. Reconfigured as Solar Two during the early to mid-1990s, the facility is successfully demonstrating the ability to collect and store solar energy efficiently.4 Solar Two's success has opened the door for further development of this technology. To date, the parabolic trough has had the greatest commercial success of the three solar concentrator designs, in large part due to the nine Solar Electric Generating Stations (SEGS) built in California's Mojave Desert from 1985 to 1991. Ranging from 14 to 80 megawatts and with a total capacity of 354 megawatts, each of these plants is still operating effectively.5 Nevada Solar One, a 75 MW parabolic trough plant that was built near Boulder City, Nevada in 2007, offers another example of recent success in the burgeoning U.S. solar thermal industry.6

More commercial-scale solar concentrator projects are under development in the United States, thanks mostly to various state policies and incentives. To help meet Californias 20 percent renewable electricity standard, for example, almost 5,000 MW of solar thermal capacity are under review by the states Energy Commission and Bureau of Land Management. Additionally, more than 3,500 MW of capacity have been announced or agreed to under power purchase agreements between major utilities and power-producing companies. As of 2009, the largest project awaiting approval is a 1,000 MW plant to be owned by Solar Millenium, LLC.7 Concentrating solar thermal is on its way to becoming a strong competitor in utility-scale energy production.

Photovoltaics In 1839, French scientist Edmund Becquerel discovered that certain materials would give off a spark of electricity when struck with sunlight. This photoelectric effect was used in primitive solar cells made of selenium in the late 1800s. In the 1950s, scientists at Bell Labs revisited the technology and, using silicon, produced solar cells that could convert four percent of the energy in sunlight directly to electricity. Within a few years, these photovoltaic (PV) cells were powering spaceships and satellites. The most important components of a PV cell are two layers of semiconductor material generally composed of silicon crystals. On its own, crystallized silicon is not a very good conductor of electricity, but when impurities are intentionally addeda process called dopingthe stage is set for creating an electric current. The bottom layer of the PV cell is usually doped with boron, which bonds with the silicon to facilitate a positive charge (P). The top layer is doped with phosphorus, which bonds with the silicon to facilitate a negative charge (N). The surface between the resulting "p-type" and "n-type" semiconductors is called the P-N junction (see the diagram below). Electron movement at this surface produces an electric field that only allows electrons to flow from the p-type layer to the n-type layer. When sunlight enters the cell, its energy knocks electrons loose in both layers. Because of the opposite charges of the layers, the electrons want to flow from the n-type layer to the p-type layer, but the electric field at the P-N junction prevents this from happening. The presence of an external circuit, however, provides the necessary path for electrons in the n-type layer to travel to the p-type layer. Extremely thin wires running along the top of the n-type layer provide this external circuit, and the electrons flowing through this circuit provide the cell's owner with a supply of electricity.

Most PV systems consist of individual square cells averaging about four inches on a side. Alone, each cell generates very little power (less than two watts), so they are often grouped together as modules. Modules can then be grouped into larger panels encased in glass or plastic to provide protection from the weather, and these panels, in turn, are either used as separate units or grouped into even larger arrays.

The three basic types of solar cells made from silicon are single-crystal, polycrystalline, and amorphous. Single-crystal cells are made in long cylinders and sliced into round or hexagonal wafers. While this process is energy-intensive and wasteful of materials, it produces the highestefficiency cellsas high as 25 percent in some laboratory tests. Because these highefficiency cells are more expensive, they are sometimes used in combination with concentrators such as mirrors or lenses. Concentrating systems can boost efficiency to almost 30 percent. Single-crystal accounts for 29 percent of the global market for PV.8 Polycrystalline cells are made of molten silicon cast into ingots or drawn into sheets, then sliced into squares. While production costs are lower, the efficiency of the cells is lower tooaround 15 percent. Because the cells are square, they can be packed more closely together. Polycrystalline cells make up 62 percent of the global PV market.9 Amorphous silicon (a-Si) is a radically different approach. Silicon is essentially sprayed onto a glass or metal surface in thin films, making the whole module in one step. This approach is by far the least expensive, but it results in very low efficienciesonly about five percent.10 A number of exotic materials other than silicon are under development, such as gallium arsenide (Ga-As), copper-indium-diselenide (CuInSe2), and cadmium-telluride (CdTe).

These materials offer higher efficiencies and other interesting properties, including the ability to manufacture amorphous cells that are sensitive to different parts of the light spectrum. By stacking cells into multiple layers, they can capture more of the available light. Although a-Si accounts for only five percent of the global market, it appears to be the most promising for future cost reductions and growth potential. In the 1970s, a serious effort began to produce PV panels that could provide cheaper solar power. Experimenting with new materials and production techniques, solar manufacturers cut costs for solar cells rapidly, as the following graph shows. One approach to lowering the cost of solar electric power is to increase the efficiency of cells, producing more power per dollar. The opposite approach is to decrease production costs, using fewer dollars to produce the same amount of power. A third approach is lowering the costs of the rest of the system. For example, building-integrated PV (BIPV) integrates solar panels into a building's structure and earns the developer a credit for reduced construction costs.

Photovoltaic costs (Source: NREL) Innovative processes and designs are continually reaching the market and helping drive down costs, including string ribbon cell production, photovoltaic roof tiles, and windows with a translucent film of a-Si. Economies of scale from a booming global PV market are also helping to reduce costs. Historically, most PV panels have been used for off-grid purposes, powering homes in remote locations, cellular phone transmitters, road signs, water pumps, and millions of solar watches and calculators. Developing nations see PV as a way to avoid building long and expensive power lines to remote areas. And every year, experimental solar-powered cars race across Australia and North America in heated competitions. More recently, thanks to lower costs, strong incentives, and net metering policies, the PV industry has placed more focus on home, business, and utility-scale systems that are attached to the power grid. In some locations, it is less expensive for utilities to install solar panels than to upgrade the transmission and distribution system to meet new electricity demand. In 2005, for the first time ever, the installation of PV systems connected to the electric grid

outpaced off-grid PV systems in the United States.11 As the PV market continues to expand, the trend toward grid-connected applications will continue. This distributed-generation approach provides a new model for the utilities of the future. Small generators, spread throughout a city and controlled by computers, could replace the large coal and nuclear plants that dominate the landscape now. The Future of Solar Energy Solar energy technologies are poised for significant growth in the 21st century. More and more architects and contractors are recognizing the value of passive solar and learning how to effectively incorporate it into building designs. Solar hot water systems can compete economically with conventional systems in some areas, and federal tax incentives are making them even more affordable for homes and businesses. And as the cost of solar PV continues to decline, these systems will penetrate increasingly larger markets. In fact, the solar PV industry aims to provide half of all new U.S. electricity generation by 2025.12 Aggressive financial incentives in Germany and Japan have made these countries global leaders in solar deployment for years. But the United States is catching up thanks to a combination of strong state-level policy support and federal tax incentives. At the state level, California is leading the way. In 2006, the states Public Utility Commission approved the California Solar Initiative, which dedicates $3.2 billion over 11 years to develop 3,000 megawatts of new solar electricity, equal to placing PV systems on a million rooftops. Other states are following suit. Sixteen states and Washington, DC have specific requirements for solar energy and/or distributed generation as part of their renewable electricity standards. New Jersey, for example, requires that 2.1 percent of all electricity come from solar energy sources by 2021. Many more states support solar deployment by offering offer rebates, production incentives, and tax incentives, as well as loan and grant programs. Federal tax incentives are also providing a strong boost to the industry. The 2008 economic stimulus bill (Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008) includes an eight year extension (through 2016) of a 30 percent tax credit, with no upper limit, for the purchase and installation of residential PV systems and solar water heaters.13 As the solar industry continues to expand, there will be occasional bumps in the road. For example, in 2007 and 2008, demand for manufacturing-quality silicon from the solar energy and semiconductor industries led to shortages that temporarily increased PV costs.14 In addition, some utilities continue to put up roadblocks for grid-connected PV systems. But these problems can be overcome, and solar energy can play an increasingly integral role in ending our national dependence on fossil fuels, combating the threat of global warming, and securing a future based on clean and sustainable energy.

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/technology_and_impacts/energy_technologies/howsolar-energy-works.html

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