Upcoming Solar Power Technology How To Effec On Home

If you don’t know much about solar technology , it’s helpful to learn the basics. This technology is very practical. Solar is a very efficient power system, and the uses for solar are endless. Wherever you need power, solar can provide it.
Solar cells- How they work:-

Converting solar energy into usable electricity is a simple process which has been around for several decades. The silicon based cells, which make up a solar panel, convert sunlight into electricity through a process known as the ‘photovoltaic effect’.

The ‘photovoltaic effect’ is a process in which ‘photons’  from the sun are absorbed and transferred to an external source (like your light globes) by your solar panels.
The amount of power your solar panels produce will vary depending on the number, configuration and orientation of the cells and the temperature and intensity of the sunlight they are exposed to.

Solar panels- How they connect and what they can do:-
Solar Cells are arranged into panels that are sized for a particular power output.

When photons collide with the cells, they excite electrons on the surface that shake loose and start a flow of electrons, or direct current (DC electricity) to an external source.

In most cases solar panels are usually mounted on the roof of houses, sheds or garages, but they can also be installed directly onto the ground.  Solar panels should be installed in the area that is exposed to the most sunlight.

A most ideal location for a solar panel is a north-facing roof inclined at 30 – 35 degrees.  Having said that an orientation within 45 degrees east or west of that will only have marginal differences in the amount of power a solar panel produces.

New Solar Energy Technology

Scientists at an American university have unveiled a revolutionary new technology that uses nanoparticles to convert solar energy directly into steam that could be used for sanitation and water purification in developing countries.

The new “solar steam” method is so effective it can even produce steam from icy cold water, said inventors from the Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

The new technology has an overall energy efficiency of 24%. Photovoltaic solar panels, by comparison, typically only have an overall energy efficiency around 15%, said the university.

The inventors said they expect the first uses of the new technology will not be for electricity generation but rather for sanitation and water purification in developing countries.

“This is about a lot more than electricity,” said LANP director Naomi Halas, the lead scientist on the project.

“With this technology, we are beginning to think about solar thermal power in a completely different way,” said Halas.

The efficiency of solar steam is due to the light-capturing nanoparticles that convert sunlight into heat. When submerged in water and exposed to sunlight, the particles heat up so quickly they instantly vaporize water and create steam.

Halas said the solar steam’s overall energy efficiency can probably be increased as the technology is refined.

“We’re going from heating water on the macro scale to heating it at the nanoscale,” Halas said.

“Our particles are very small – even smaller than a wavelength of light – which means they have an extremely small surface area to dissipate heat. This intense heating allows us to generate steam locally, right at the surface of the particle, and the idea of generating steam locally is really counterintuitive.”

Rice graduate student Oara Neumann videotaped a solar steam demonstration in which a test tube of water containing light-activated nanoparticles was submerged into a bath of ice water. Using lens to concentrate sunlight onto the near-freezing mixture in the tube, Neumann showed she could create steam from nearly frozen water.

Steam is one of the world’s most-used industrial fluids. About 90 percent of electricity is produced from steam, and steam is also used to sterilize medical waste and surgical instruments, to prepare food and to purify water.

Most industrial steam is produced in large boilers, and Halas said solar steam’s efficiency could allow steam to become economical on a much smaller scale.

Another potential use could be in powering hybrid air-conditioning and heating systems that run off of sunlight during the day and electricity at night.