Solar Energy

Hi if anyone was is a solar expert of some sort, can you please help me and answer my interview questions? Its for a project and I need to interview someone with some sort of general knowledge of Solar power and technology

My Questions are:

Q1. What is it like working and putting together Solar equipment for people who are starting to go “green” and looking to save some money?

Q2.What are some of the benefits when working with a Solar company?

Q3.Are there any dangers when working with Solar equipment?

Q4. Do you think most of America will switch from Grid-tied energy and go to more eco-friendly solar power by the next decade?

Q5. What are your thoughts on solar energy and the effect it has on global warming?

Q6. Do you currently own any solar equipment of your own?

Q7. How often do you go out and set up solar equipment for other customers?

Q8. Do you like working with a solar company? What do you like about it?

Q9. How much money does solar power save you?

Q10. What are other benefits can you gain from using solar energy?

I’m not what you’re looking for, but maybe I can help a little? I’m doing a physics Masters in cadmium telluride solar cells. I work with a group of research scientists.

Q1: I don’t make panels for people. We build small ones in labs using different techniques and then test them to try and work out how to make them more efficient, so companies can help people ‘go green’ more cheaply later on :p the physics is very interesting & challenging though.

Q2: I work in a university, so I’m still a student. That’s fun!

Q3: Most solar equipment has very little danger, but we work with cadmium telluride, which is toxic. We have stringent safety procedures, although we only use tiny amounts (15g of the stuff coats about a square metre – the solar panels are very thin, about 5-thousandths of a millimetre).

Q4: No. It will take several decades; but I’m convinced that during the next decade some techs will become cost competitive in the US. We need to develop alternatives; porphyrin dye solar cells, copper-zinc-tin-sulphur cells or organics before we can provide countries worth of power.

Q5: It’s clean and can produce huge amounts of power without taking up much land like wind power does. You still need backup or energy storage, but it’s going to be very sensible in sunny places. I’ve calculated the heat flow changes and solar panels reduce global warming.

Q6: I have a solar charger for my phone and battery equipment that I was given as a gift & I use on camping etc. I wouldn’t buy any for a few years yet though: I live in northern England!

Q7: I don’t set it up for other people. I test cells pretty much every week though. With some periods of programming & writing in between.

Q8: I like being a student and researching something that other people haven’t done yet. The challenge of the unknown is great.

Q9: Zero, right now :p

Q10: Right now it’s too expensive, but in future it will be cheaper than grid power, and cleaner. Less air pollution = better health. Less global warming and insulation from price shocks when petrol and gas prices shoot up.

Only 80 billion(roughly 10% of the "Stimulus" bill) was spent on renewable energy. Nothing is being done to develop said technologies. More of the bill was spent on pork and earmarks than was spent on infrastructure and energy, two of our biggest needs. We can supply enough power to meet 100% of our needs through Solar energy. The technology is out there already. Why are we not doing this? Does this give an open window for a Republican to come in and propose better solutions for energy independence and clean energy?

ANYTHING with Obummer’s name on it is questionable.

Say we had a green president, green administration instead of the current one, and they had taken half a trillion dollars and put it into solar.

Say every building had its own independent energy supply that would protect us when a terrorist attack happens as a result of mass murder for oil / cash. How many energy systems would that money have covered?

Say every new car was being built with solar technology…not hydrogen or other fuel resulting in daily costs to every citizen that would go to the wealthy stockholders instead of gas costs currently going to wealthy stockholders). How many cars do you suppose that money would have built, and how much more developed would the technology be by now?
hyspeed_games: That wasn’t my question. I asked, "How developed would solar technology be by now?"

First we have a planet, then we have sexist-free forums.

Hi,

Good question..

and YES it would be highly developed with all the money pumped into it.. unfortunately.. Bush and his cronies would not make money out of solar the way they make money out of oil.. so it was preferred to invade Iraq , concoct a load of lies.. and try steal its oil.. than actually develop your own technology to solve your own self made problems.. and lets face it.. Iraq has nothing to do with the fact Americans are the greediest over-consumers of rubbish on this planet.. but sadly.. they paid the price for it.. because they got the oil Americans need to produce more junk..

Its our most abundant resource and it creates life instead of destroying it.
Big Oil and Big Coal were at one point VERY EXPENSIVE and then lowered in price when it became common and popular. Yet the pollution from both is at the very least bad for mankinds lives.
PVC cells come from Silicon which is the 2nd most prevalent resource on earth. The technology is NOT NEW. Its actually over 40 years old.
It can be put literally anywhere as it has nothing to do with temperature.
Sunlight is sunlight.
Many countries where there is less sun do not need solar PVC energy. Iceland where it is dark 3 months out of the year depend on geothermal and hydroelectric energy to power 100% of the country.
Hydroelectric,Wind,Nuclear and Geothermal energy can provide all the energy the USA needs in the evening hours.
A solar PVC system 3 times the size of Rhode Island can power the entire USA during the day. This easily fits in empty areas of Utah,Arizona and Nevada.
And there is room for more !!
Batteries are not needed as I described. The power would go directly into the grid after conversion thru an inverter.
We already displace much more area thru refineries, coal plants, natural gas plants, oil platforms and oil fields than solar installations would take up. No pollutants would come from the installations that would need MINIMAL MAINTENANCE compared to oil and coal installations.
Even on cloudy days we still receive a massive amount of sunlight. We would not be taking anything like oil or coal as a resource. Over 95% of sunlight is already wasted.

You make an important point. The sun energy powers solar cells and drives the wind and waves.
A new solar power cell claimed an energy conversion efficiency of 42%, gasoline motors have a lower efficiency. Solar power cells can be placed on top of homes, deserts, carports, hangars, garages, etc. At the current price of oil they are already the most cost-effective -and the price of oil will continue to increase, thanks to our "friends and enemies."

MIT is developing a floating windmill which would allow thousands of huge windmills (each 5 MW) all over the oceans most too far to provide power with a cable.
To collect the energy they could use the electricity, and highly pure water, to make Hydrogen. The same ships that collect the hydrogen would bring the highly purified water.
These windmills are designed to survive storms but can be driven to other locations to avoid one or avoid bird routes.
Their total power capacity could, eventually, exceed that of oil and nuclear power combined.

Is solar energy technology considered to be in this category and also what is the history behind this new technology.

Examples of recycled building materials are:

Bricks cleaned up and re-used
Roof Tiles
Windows (sometimes if they have good thermal insulation)
All concrete and stone items are frequently ground up on site and then added to cement and sand mixes to replace aggegate (used as foundations)
Old floor boards can be sanded and polished up to be re-used.

Solar panels are usually manufactured from silicon based parts with plastic overlays etc. I have never heard of these materials coming from recycled building items. I guess that you might mount a solar panel on the roof of a house with old wooden beams from a roof or floor?

Solar panels have been known about for many years but their efficiency has been very poor and the cost of construction is so far greater than annual energy savings that they were generally not worth having. Over the last 5 years however there have been some major advances using exotic chemicals which allow solar panels to be just about viable in hot countries with most days having full sunshine. If the cost of manufacture continues to drop then they are going to become more and more viable..
If your idea of using recycled building materials becomes reality then this will help to spread the technology even further. At this moment I still can not see how to use recycled materials though.

hydro projects lead to depletion of natural resources ,the need is to popularize solar energy, as the telecom sector has shown aggresive drive creates demand makes technology cheapand affordable ,similar drive is essential for saving our resources and making a bright lighted world

"Not provided"??????

Are you saying that people in hot climates can’t take care of themselves?

"handy cost effective solar energy tools and electricity/? "

Do you think "people in hot climates" are retarded or something? If it WERE cost effective don’t you think they would already have them??

Maybe "solar energy tools" are NOT cost effective and THEY know it, but YOU obviously don’t.

Tatas are going to introduce compressed air technology at global level. While we say this technology is a boon ,more especially, when we are at the juncture of oil crisis, the governments of all countries should undertake a massive research on this technology together with solar energy, find out a viable solution. Once an alternate source of energy is identified with an economical cost component, the same may be put on global track for the benefit of the masses.

s venkataraman

Compressed air power, while possibly solving pollution problems in densely-populated areas, is not a solution to the oil crisis. It takes energy, electricity, to compress the air, and that electricity comes largely from fossil fuels – oil, gas and coal-fired power stations. Really, they fall into the same category as electric cars – they don’t remove the problem so much as move it elsewhere. Compressed air vehicles have some advantages over electric ones – they are lighter, cheaper to manufacture and don’t require bulky batteries filled with hazardous chemicals. But there are disadvantages too – compressing air is only a third as efficient at storing energy than charging a battery, involve carrying around potentially volatile cylinders of highly compressed gas, and they suffer performance issues, particularly at low temperatures. Until the majority of the electricity supply is generated from sources other than oil, compressed air cars do not offer a way to break dependence on oil.

Hi
I am doing a project about a renewable energy.well my topic is BioOli energy (it is a fuel). anyway i am discussing this type of energy and its feasibility in Peace Region of BC with a 230 kV transmission main nearby and how likely it is to feed this energy to a network grid……to sum it up, I have completed all my research and stuff, however, the only part i am stuck at is that i have to compare this with other suitable types of renewable technologies like solar and wind in that area. This should include comparison of the maintenance/installation costs, and systems’ efficiency.

I appreciate if any one, who is familiar with this types of energy source in Peace Region of BC, could help me.

B.C. has alot of hydro-eletric dams to you might want to examine these too. Not really sure about wind power up there. You might want to do some research on the wind fields in southern Alberta (im sure there has been cost analysis done on these.) I don’t think solar power is very feasible up there, with the long, dark, cloudy winters.

India is located at a perfect location and has the most perfect weather than Why are we not taking advantage of it?
India is surrounded by oceans, meaning coastlines, where its most windy, so why don’t we have Wind Turbines to produce Electricity?
India is one of the countries that experiences long summers, and most sunny days, then why don’t we have Solar Panels to produce electricity?
These technologies are much better than burning coals to produce electricity, coal burning releases carbon dioxide which is a major cause global warming.
Where as Wind and Solar Energy Technology are clearn energy souces. We have these technology available to us, then Why not use it at a larger scale?

The energy policy of India is characterized by tradeoffs between four major drivers:

Rapidly growing economy, with a need for dependable and reliable supply of electricity, gas, and petroleum products;
Increasing household incomes, with a need for affordable and adequate supply of electricity, and clean cooking fuels;
Limited domestic reserves of fossil fuels, and the need to import a vast fraction of the gas, crude oil, and petroleum product requirements, and recently the need to import coal as well; and
Indoor, urban and regional environmental impacts, necessitating the need for the adoption of cleaner fuels and cleaner technologies.
These trade-offs are often difficult to achieve. For example, the supply of adequate, yet affordable electricity generated and used cleanly is a continuing challenge because expansion of supply, and adoption of cleaner technologies, especially renewable energy, often means that this electricity is too expensive for many Indians, particularly in rural areas.

In recent years, these challenges have led to a major set of continuing reforms and restructuring.

1 Energy conservation
2 Electricity industry
3 Alterative bio-diesel sources
4 Wind power showcase
5 Oil
6 Nuclear power
7 Solar Energy
8 Policy framework

Energy conservation
Energy conservation has emerged as a major policy objective, and the Energy Conservation Act 2001, was passed by the Indian Parliament in September 2001. This Act requires large energy consumers to adhere to energy consumption norms; new buildings to follow the Energy Conservation Building Code; and appliances to meet energy performance standards and to display energy consumption labels. The Act also created the Bureau of Energy Efficiency to implement the provisions of the Act.

Electricity industry
The electricity industry has been restructured by the Electricity Act 2003, which unbundles the vertically integrated electricity supply utilities in each state of India into a transmission utility, and a number of generating and distribution utilities. Electricity Regulatory Commissions in each state set tariffs for electricity sales. The Act also enables open access on the transmission system, allowing any consumer (with a load of greater than 1 MW) to buy electricity from any generator. Significantly, it also requires each Regulatory Commission to specify the minimum percentage of electricity that each distribution utility must source from renewable energy sources.

Alterative bio-diesel sources
The President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam, is one of the strong advocaters of Jatropha cultivation for production of bio-diesel.[1] In his recent speech, the President said that out of the 60 million hectares (600,000 km²) of waste land that is available in India over 30 million hectares (300,000 km²) are suitable for Jatropha cultivation. Once this plant is grown the plant has a useful lifespan of several decades. During it life Jatropha requires very little water when compared to other cash crops. For plan for supplying incentives to encourage the use of Jatropha has been implemented.

Wind power showcase
The once-impoverished village of Muppandal benefited from the building of the nearby Muppandal wind farm, a renewable energy source, which supplies the villagers with electricity for work.[2][3] The village had been selected as the showcase for India’s $2 billion clean energy program which provides foreign companies with tax breaks for establishing fields of wind turbines in the area. Now huge power-producing windmills tower over the palm trees. The village has attracted wind energy producing companies creating thousands of new jobs, dramatically raising the incomes of villagers.[4] The suitability of Muppandal as a site for wind farms stems from its geographical location as it has access to the seasonal monsoon winds.[2]

Oil
Because of political instability in the Middle East and increasing domestic demand for energy, India is keen on decreasing its dependency on OPEC to meet its oil demand, and increasing its energy security. Several Indian oil companies, primarily lead by ONGC and Reliance Industries, have started a massive hunt for oil in several regions in India including Rajasthan, Krishna-Godavari river basin[5] and north-eastern Himalayas. The proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline is a part of India’s plan to meet its increasing energy demand.

Nuclear power
While India is self-sufficient in thorium, possessing 24% of the world’s known and economically available thorium,[6] it possesses a meager 1% of the similarly calculated global uranium reserves.[7] The United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act is expected to greatly help India in obtaining a steady supply of sufficient nuclear energy in the longer run.

Solar Energy
India’s theoretical solar potential is about 5000 TW·h per year (i.e. 600 GW), far more than its current total consumption. Currently solar power is prohibitive due to high initial costs of deployment. However India’s long-term solar potential could be unparalleled in the world because it has the ideal combination of both high solar insolation and a big potential consumer base density. [8][9] A major factor influencing a regions energy intensity is the cost of energy consumed for temperature control. Since cooling load requirements, unlike heating, are roughly in phase with the sun’s intensity, cooling from intense solar radiation could make perfect energy-economic sense in the subcontinent, whenever the required technology becomes competitively cheaper.

Policy framework
A long-term energy policy perspective is provided by the Integrated Energy Policy Report 2006 which provides policy guidance on energy-sector growth.

I live in Southern California, and I have been considering solar panels for some time. I’d love to air condition my house, but I’m not willing to do so until and unless we come up with an alternative energy source. I’m somewhat anxious to go ahead with the solar idea. It seems, though, that the technology is changing rapidly. I wonder if it would be smarter to wait.

If you can afford about $50000 for an average house, go ahead.

You might want to calculate how much power cost this saves per year to see how many years it will take to get payback. Look at your old utility bill to see what you paid for the last year. Also see what your average power consumption was for that period.

Check with your utility company to see if you can sell power back to them from your array. Then get an array 2-4 times bigger than your average power consumption is. This allows you surplus to sell to them to make up for periods with no sun.

Remember that you need a roof facing the sun with nothing to block direct sun, not even a small bare tree branch. The way the arrays work, if any small portion is blocked, the array puts out nothing. The array should be at the optimal angle, which varies with location.