Solar Electric Energy Systems

Solar panels utilize photovoltaic power in large quantities, a method that became possible following the discovery of the silicon cell in 1954. A photovoltaic power system was developed for El Paso in 1980. Photovoltaics are

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.

“The photovoltaic effect is the basic physical process through which a photovoltaic cell converts sunlight into electricity.”(Seale E, 2003) Sunlight is composed of photons, the photons contain various amounts of energy corresponding to different wavelengths of light. When the light strikes the photovoltaic cell, it will be reflected, absorbed or pass through the two side photovoltaic cell. One side has a positive electric charge while the other side has a negative charge. Light striking crystals such as silicon or germanium, in which electrons are usually not free to move from atom to atom within the crystal,

Solar power is the most abundant most renewable resource that we have and it is free. The process starts when the sun shines on Solar PV panels that have been installed on your roof. Photovoltaic refers to the scientific process by which solar energy is converted into electricity. There are a number of silicon cells within each PV panel. These react with photons, or units of light, from the sun to produce direct current or electricity. DC electricity then travels to an inverter, which converts this energy to electricity known as alternating current or AC that can be used in your home or office. AC electricity then travels to the distribution network in your home powering your domestic or office appliances. When your solar panels produce more electricity than your home or office is using, the extra electricity gets fed back into the national grid. Yet, there are many processes the PV cell actually goes through to produce power of electricity. The top and bottom layer of the PV cells are protective glass layers with conducting coding’s. Electricity in the form of electrons flows in and out of these conducting coding’s while electrical production process happens in the middle layer of the PV cell. At the molecular level, a photon strikes a dye molecule absorbed on the surface of the TiO2 causing an excited state, which releases an electron into the TiO2 that exists through the conductive layer. The

Solar power, or photovoltaics use light as a source of electricity. The photoelectric effect, discovered by Edmund Bequerel in 1839, shows that some materials have the ability to release electric current when subjected to light. Solar cells consist of semi conductors that are specially treated to create

Introduction: The tradition solar cells have many faults and are dangerous to the environment. The TSC gives out a lot of pollution through its waste such as silicon tetrachloride. Also, when the reactors need to be cleaned several harmful greenhouse gases are used. The eye sensitized solar cells that are being designed in this lab are much cleaner for the environment. No waste is produced and no harmful gases are need to clean them.

Solar cells operate by the photoelectric effect, in which incoming sunlight excites electrons within a semiconducting material like silicon to higher energy level, leading to the movement of free electrons, which eventually pass into an external circuit to maintain a flow of electricity (www.larouchepac.com).

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.

Solar energy explained straightforwardly is a method of which the suns’ rays are collected with panels, therefore harvesting solar energy and converting it into electricity.These panels work by implementing solar cells that these devices turn into energy protons. A. E. Becquerel was the first physicist to examine the “photovoltaic effect” in which light photons stimulate electrons to create an electric current. (SE) Solar panels are large black rectangular squares, which can be placed on the roof of most structures and occupy a minimal amount of space. The ramifications are reduced cost of

Chrobak, Pavel, et al. "Photovoltaics and its potential application in the production of electricity." Annals of DAAAM & Proceedings, 2015, p. 1032+. Academic OneFile,

Incoming photons knock electrons lose in the silicon plating and cause them to flow, resulting in electric current (Christen 396). The primary advantage of photovoltaic cells is the "inexhaustible supply [of energy]" (Blair 123). In addition, solar panels run with minimal maintenance. A photovoltaic cell generates no pollution, creates no noise, and contains few mechanical parts (Casey). Thus solar energy may be collected cleanly, quietly, and indefinitely--without generating pollutants in the process.

In 1954, Bell Laboratories have developed the first solar cell and the energy efficiency was 6% back then (Goetzberger et al. 2002). The figure has been raised to over 10% within 18 months (Green. 2009). For a long period of time, solar energy has mainly been applied into the power supply of space vehicles (Goetzberger et al. 2002). On account of the substantial development in the performance of silicon cells, the efficiency of solar energy conversion has reached 25% (Green. 2009). The growth over time of solar efficiency is delineated in Figure 1:

Photovoltaic (PV) cells are a great way to produce energy from the sun. A photovoltaic cell is a semiconductor that converts light into a direct current. This energy can be used in calculators, homes, street signs, stop lights, and many more everyday products. In 1839, Antoine-César Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect. The photovoltaic effect is when light falls on an electrode, producing voltage. Following Becquerel’s discovery Charles Fritts constructed an ultrathin semiconductor of gold in order to produce a current. Charles Fritts method was very inefficient because it only converted less than 1% of the light intake to electricity. Even though gold semiconductors is inefficient in today's technology it was a foreshadowing of a new renewable source of energy. In 1927, copper oxide was used as a semiconductor while copper was used for the casing of the semiconductor. This new material still only converted less than 1% of the light intake into voltage. In 1941 the inefficiency problem was helped by Russell Ohl, who created the silicon solar cell. The use of the silicon solar cell proved to be more productive as it raised converted 6% of light intake. In 1980, solar cells fabricated out of

The earth intercepts over 173 thousand terawatts of energy. Solar cells offer a means to harness this energy by converting solar energy into electrical energy. While some may argue that solar energy is an inconsistent energy source, research is being poured into creating more efficient solar cells so that when light is incident on the solar cell, the solar cells operate at their highest possible efficiency levels. Currently, the most efficient solar cells convert 34.5% of sunlight to energy. With innovations like floating solar farms, such as the one pictured in Fig. 1 built in Tokyo Japan, and Tesla’s new solar roof, pictured in Fig. 2, the competitiveness and feasibility for solar energy continues to grow. The question now becomes, can we power the world using solar energy?

Solar cells are also known as photovoltaic cells, which suggest that light energy is being converted to electrical energy. Most photovoltaic cells consist of silicon in its crystalline structure. In that structure, each silicon atom has four valence electrons, and each one bonds to an adjacent electron. Silicon then is a poor conductor since electrons cannot move freely through the substance, but the addition of impurities such as phosphorus, which is called doping, to the silicon crystalline structure provide extra electrons called free carriers that can be knocked off the atom via light energy.6 The section of the photovoltaic cell that is doped with phosphorus is called the N-type because it has numerous negatively charged electrons flowing and creating a current. On the other hand, the section of the photovoltaic cell that is doped with boron is called the P-type because boron only has three valence electrons.7 When the N-type and