Advantage And Disadvantage Of Solar Cell

The greatest energy that can be produced by the sun is electricity. Photovoltaics, or solar cells, capture the sun and convert it into electricity. Solar cells were discovered by the Europeans back in the 1870’s when they used selenium to develop the telegraph. They found that when light hits selenium it would produce and electrical current. Soon enough there were many scientists and engineers working on photovoltaic systems. Silicon and Selenium proved to be the two best elements to conduct electricity when light hits them. Photovoltaic systems (PV cell) work by converting the suns light into electricity. A semi conducting material absorbs the sunlight, that energy knocks electrons loose from their atoms, this allows the electrons to flow through the material to produce electricity. The further development of solar cells can be attributed to the satellite industry. Solar cells were expensive and there was no use for them until satellites came. Because it is impractical to tether satellites it became important to develop solar energy at any cost that would power these satellites. This created a sustainable market for solar power, the first of its kind.

Currently solar power is beginning to expand horizontally throughout communities. This growth is creating a demand that is beginning to reduce the expense of purchasing and installing solar panels. The concept is catching on and the technology is improving as the demand increases.

The increase in oil prices, the depletion of fossil fuel, and increase in consumption of energy has led to finding an alternate source of electricity generation through sustainable energy resources. The sun was humankind's first source of power, and with a little effort to make it more efficient, it may be the only source of energy we may need for the future. Among various sustainable sources, solar energy is the fastest growing,

The sun is the source of all life on Earth. In just one hour the sunlight hitting the earth’s surface provides enough energy to power the global economy for a full year (Brown, 2015). The sun will continue to burn for billions of years, making it an unquestionably reliable source for renewable energy. Modern-day photovoltaic (PV) solar cells rely on the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon where light is used to free electrons from a solid surface - usually silicon - to create electricity. PV panels are typically installed on homes and buildings, or in ground arrangements, sometimes called solar farms.

Julio Cano-Vargas Comm 150-29 Prof. Parente 10/24/13 1) Introduction a) Attention Getter: Who here wants to help the environment? Who here loves to save money? Who here wants to get paid for doing nothing? Well you can do all that with solar panels, and I’ll tell you how.

First Solar, Inc. is an American photovoltaic manufacturer of solar panel, and a provider of photovoltaic power plants and supporting services that gather finance, construction, and end of life panel recycling. First Solar operates through two main segments of activities: components, and system. The Company's components segment, which accounts for 39% of its revenues, designs, manufactures and sells solar modules, which convert sunlight into electricity. The system segment accounts for 61% of the company’s revenues, and provides photovoltaic solar power systems or solar solutions for systems, which use the Company's solar modules. With over 10 Gigawatts installed worldwide, First Solar has developed, financed and engineered some of the world’s

First Solar, Inc. located in Huntington Beach is a design and manufacturing company found in 1999 who produce photovoltaic modules, or solar panels, through the use of thin film semiconductors (Reuters, para 2). The company however, has a much earlier history than scribed. In 1984, inventor and owner of Solar Cells, Inc Harold McMaster manufactured solar cells from silicon (energyandcapital, para 2). However, as silicon became more expensive, McMaster decided to switch to cadmium telluride. This material was far more inexpensive than silicon which would eventually lead the company to thrive. So it thrived, as in 1999 the company was purchased by True North Partners, LLC and was named First Solar, Inc (energyandcapital, para 10). First Solar is the first solar company to flourish and create new solar innovations. Such as, producing 1 GW of solar electricity in a single year, breaking the one dollar per watt manufacturing overhead cost, and creating a photovoltaic module recycling program (FirstSolar, para 2). To put that into perspective clean technica explains that, “1GW of solar power can power up to 750,000 homes and about 2 coal-fired power plants” (Shahan, para 2). To evaluate whether First Solar is a smart investment decision, we will first take a look at growth & profitability of the company along with the corporate responsibility the company holds. We will also take into consideration energy efficiency as well as their support services. Based upon these factors a

Recently, the price of unrenewable energy resource such as oil, coral and natural gas is increasing by time because of rare and more and more usage for individual and industries. Solar panels which use energy from Sun are considered as renewable energy through the form of solar radiation, UV. Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they

In the last decades energy consumption has come to a time where people started noticing the climate changes and the effect of fossil fuel energy for not only being environmentally destructive, but also causing Global warming (the warming that occurs as a result of increase emissions of greenhouse gases) has become a very big issue worldwide. The fossil fuels (Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas) which is the main sources of the world’s energy sources, is also one of the main causes of the climate change. In addition with some human activities (e.g. through burning fossil fuels), they have contributed immensely to the global warming, which has also affected the climate conditions in the world. The affect of these changes has prompted some people to propose alternative energy like solar panels. According to Abby Gruen, after realizing the issues, the engineers at Bell Laboratories come up with the first useful photovoltaic cell, an alternative to fossil fuel energy but less harmful for the environment and the pocket. Solar panel which uses renewable energy like the sun to light homes heat and produces electricity. Unlike fossil fuel, solar panels is less harmful for the environment. Since it creation few decades ego, just recently solar panel started getting popular in homes in the United States and around the world. When it was invented people were not interested about it, because of the high installation price, however the price has changed dramatically since then. Even though

Solar cell or photovoltaic (PV) systems usually transformed energy from the sun in to electric current. It can be measured in terms of ‘‘conversion efficiency’’, the proportion of solar energy transformed to electricity. (Henderson, Conkling, & Roberts, 2007) Sunpower primarily focused on the production of solar cell. But by moving in to wafer manufacturing it soon incorporated in to manufacturing of solar power module units. In general Sunpower manufacturing process needed approximately two times as many steps as the usual solar manufacturing process need and many of these steps were distinctive to Sunpower. Sunpower has nearly 15 -20 established cell manufactures, a handful of silicon – based cell manufacturing upstarts and a number of thin film solar companies offering potentially unsettling technologies.

Electrical power is generated by use of photovoltaics by converting sunlight into direct current and this is achieved by making use of materials that are semiconducting and have the properties of photovoltaic effect. Solar panels that have got several number of solar cells are used for photovoltaic systems. Solar photovoltaic energy is considered as a sustainable and cleaner form of power and has an advantage of making use of a renewable source which is the sun. The process of obtaining electricity from the sun has the advantage of having no movement of objects and no environmental emissions, a very clear and known study since for fifty years photovoltaic systems have been in use specialized applications and also for more than twenty years grid connected systems have been put into us (Armentrout and Patricia Armentrout).

A common concern about solar panels is their reliability and durability. Fortunately, these have both been addressed in the scientific community and simple solutions exist to help solar cells produce a steady flow for a longer time. At night or during a cloudy day, solar panels cannot produce electricity, however, this is provided for by including a lead-acid battery in the solar panel’s structure. It allows for energy to be stored and later used at times of low electricity output (Quaschning 158). As for durability, Bob Johnstone says that a twenty-year guarantee is now normal for solar cell companies; SunPower even declares that its panels will last for forty years (Johnstone 336; SunPower).

In recent decades, much debate has ensued about the vast amount of natural resources and ecological services society depletes. Moreover, the debate has evaluated how society depletes these natural resources at a faster rate than the environment can replenish. It also assesses how society can mitigate these environmental issues in order to preserve our natural resources for the prosperity of future generations. Research suggests that the natural resources we currently use, such as coal and petroleum, could be fully depleted within the next 25 and 100 years respectively (Byrd, 2012). Given that society has a tendency to over-consume natural resources, many economists have suggested that the use of alternative energy could alleviate the

Solar energy may define as the energy received by the earth from the sun. This solar energy is in the form of solar radiation. With the help of solar cells, solar radiation can convert into electricity. Sun is a highly powerful energy source, humans and natures are directly depending on the sun. For example in hydro-electricity the solar energy needed for the evaporation of water after that it returns to earth as rain and provides water in dams. In biomass, the solar energy used that process. Solar cells directly converted solar radiation into electricity, during the process time there is no noise or pollution are there. These cells made with some semiconducting materials. If use solar cells in our home it will help to reduce the greenhouse gas emission, minimise the percentage of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and mainly reduce the necessity of fossil fuels and natural gas use to produce electricity. According to the Ben Sorensen, solar energy is one of a good source of substitute energy, for the reason that it is renewable, economical and does not pollute our environment. Thus, this essay will be divided into three parts. Firstly, we will talk about fossil fuels and its demerits. Secondly, we will look at the issues and implications of solar energy. Finally, we will focus on the advantageous and disadvantageous of solar energy respectively.

Abstract: The current energy situation with fossil fuels as the main source of the world’s energy has two main flaws: fossil fuels contribute to global warming via the greenhouse effect and they are limited in the quantity that remains. Solar power solves both of these problems and can be captured by utilizing photovoltaic cells. However, photovoltaic cells have their own drawbacks due to their high costs of installation and maintenance.