Solar Energy » solar energy panels

What is a good book for learning about solar panels and solar energy?

admin — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 10:12:25 +0000

Particularly home built or inexpensive solar energy. I’m looking for something that will explain the entire process. Many books I have found assume previous knowledge of the subject and usually end with me Googling for a couple hours. Thanks!

You can go for "Earth4Energy". It offers a lot of fantastic home made solar solutions on their site, which can be built easily, for the low cost of less than $200.

The features are :
* Full and detailed instructions given which can be easily understood by a layman or the unskilled for building a home made solar panel.
* Other details on how to obtain the components available in the neighborhood material store for preparing the home made solar system.
* Tips on how to construct the alternative energy generators that is not readily available anywhere else.
* One time investment – and life long updates to the manual and video series, at no additional cost.
* Full cash back if you are not saving hundreds of dollars per month on your energy bill after using the system for eight months.
* Detailed instructions explained by videos

There are also testimonials given on this site. You can go through them.
http://solarpanels-for-home.blogspot.com

All the best

Where can I find interesting posts about renewable energy, solar panels…?

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:07:27 +0000

Where I can find interesting posts about renewable energy, solar panels, ecology and so on…

Check out the learn section at the AltE Store. http://www.altestore.com/learn/. We have articles and free videos to learn about solar electric, solar water heating, energy efficiency, etc.

Is it the heat that gives energy to solar panels or a something else?

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:40:49 +0000

I know that solar panels get there energy from the sun, but is it just from its heat? Many other things give off heat, like a heat lamp. I put a solar powered light i found up to a heat lamp for a minute and it had energy to produce light for a long time. I don’t know what else it could be, just want to know for sure.

Thanks in advance.
Oh — well in this case I’m talking about solar panels that produce electricity.

Solar electric panels (photovoltaics) use the light of the sun to produce electricity. Heat actually lowers their efficiency and causes them to produce less electricity.

How do solar energy panels work?

admin — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:58:48 +0000

If the energy is obtained from the sun, is it obtained from the heat or UV rays of the sun? Also, after it obtains the energy, how does it transfer that into usable energy? Lastly, is it immediately usable or is it stored until its use is required?

Solar electric panels (photovoltaic panels) use the light of the sun to produce electricity. They are made out of semiconductor materials like silicon (the same stuff that’s in your computer), which is treated so it’s positively charged on one side and negatively charged on the other.

When light energy strikes this "solar cell", electrons are knocked loose from the semiconductor material, and at this point they can be captured in the form of an electric current so they can be put to work.

Solar panels produce DC electricity which must be converted to AC by a solar power inverter before it can be used to power household appliances.

If you have a battery bank, the power can be stored for later use.

Are plants more efficient at converting sunlight into energy then solar panels?

admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 05:25:17 +0000

Now that scientists can look at events the happen on a femtosecond time scale, they will be able to fully understand how plants convert sunlight into energy. Will this improve our solar energy technology?

Photosynthesis is considered to be 5% efficient.1 Solar photovoltaic panels to convert sunlight to electricity that you can buy are from 8 to 22% efficient.2 In the lab they have gotten up to 42% efficiency.3 Solar thermal panels used to heat hot water are from 60 to 80% efficient.4

How many solar panels would you need to equal the energy output of 1kg of U-235?

admin — Sat, 08 May 2010 16:59:01 +0000

How many solar panels would you need to equal the energy output of 1kg of U-235?

if 1kg of U-235 can produce 80 trillion joules (8×10^13 J) of energy how many solar panels would you need to equal this amount of energy?

Any info would be very much appreciated!

Unless the student is supposed to be able to calculate how long it takes the U-235 to produce that amount of energy, there is not enough information. If that is within the scope of the course, the question is way out of my league.

But assuming you just left out the time when stating the problem, divide that into 80 trillion to get joules/sec.

Let’s say the time is 40 billion seconds* for the U-235 to generate 80 trillion J. Divide 80 trillion by 40 billion, that’s 2,000 J/sec. You would need 10 panels. (A typical panel produces 200 Joules/sec.)

*That’s a LOT of seconds, even a lot of centuries. By then the solar panels would have worn out and crumbled into dust, so it’s a silly question in that sense. Is the teacher trying to make a point about the futility of solar power?

SOLAR PANELS (How to manage solar panel energy)?

admin — Tue, 04 May 2010 03:33:33 +0000

how does one connect an outlet to a solar panel

and

how do you store solar energy?
recommended products please…

You store power in lead acid batteries (heavy duty car batteries). You use a diode with it so when sun goes down the power from batteries doesn’t go back to solar cells.

Then you have to run an inverter that switches power from 12V DC (if you use car batteries) to 120V AC to run household appliances. The inverter is the same thing that you can use in your car if you want to plug laptops etc into your car. It uses your car battery for power and has a receptacle in the inverter identical to want is in your house. You can buy inverters about anywhere, Autozone, Harbor Freight tools , Northern Tools, etc
inverters:
http://search.harborfreight.com/cpisearch/web/search.do?keyword=inverter&Submit=Go

and solar panels:
http://search.harborfreight.com/cpisearch/web/search.do?keyword=solar+&Submit=Go
This can be very expensive for home use energy.

And you need a charge controller, which controlls the charge to your battery ( takes the place of the diode above so use this instead)

Google "homemade solar power" and you’ll get lots of info

what energy do solar panels gather from the sun?

admin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 04:37:12 +0000

Solar panels gather _______ energy from the sun.

solar , which is later converted to different forms of energy.

Is this the reason why solar panels are energy efficient?

admin — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 06:08:23 +0000

Solar panels in houses will definitely reduce energy usage as it does not involve ongoing dependence on non-renewable energy sources such as coal-burning power plants. These coal power plants generate tremendous amounts of electricity through the burning of coal though it heavily pollutes the environment. Solar panels are a much cleaner renewable alternative as it is utilises the sun’s energy and converts it into electricity. The great thing about solar panels is that when used with conventional electricity it reduces your electricity bill hugely and when used alone you have no electricity bill to pay as it using the sun’s free energy. It can also be used for generating hot water.

PS-I wrote it by myself

The use of photovoltaic technology for producing power is environmentally friendly. Is uses naturally occurring sunlight as its source and gives off no emissions. It doesn’t pollute the air by releasing carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide or mercury into the atmosphere like many traditional forms of power generation. The passive energy created is both economical and abundant.

How energy-productive are solar panels, compared to natural gas?

admin — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:12:54 +0000

Also, what’s the solar panel’s rate of producing electricity?

Solar panels really can’t compete with fossil fuels of any kind.

They’re great for low power consumption applications, but I doubt we’ll ever see solar powered steel refineries or heavy manufacturing plants.

A solar panel that produces 175 watts is about 62" x 33" (5 feet by almost 3 feet). 175 watts is enough to power a couple light bulbs; you’d certainly never cook anything on it.

On the other hand consider how much heat and light is produced by a small natural gas fireplace or stove burner. It would take a lot of those 5 foot long solar panels to equal that.