Solar Energy

Wind energy is a form of solar energy. It is a process using wind to generate electricity. We are powering wind turbines that can easily transfer it to something useful. Pros: 1. Renewable 2. Abundant 3. Good Availability Cons: 1. Expensive 2. Associated with Pollution 3. Requires Space

One technology that we use to convert light energy from the sun into electricity is solar panels. A solar panel is a packaged, intersected assortment of solar, or photovoltaic, cells that can be used to produce and supply electricity in a range of settings. The panels use light energy from the sun to produce electricity to power your home or business. Power companies, particularly those in states with lots of sunny days, such as Arizona, have made significant investment in large scale solar power installations over the last 5 to 10 years. Photovoltaics is the direct conversion of light into electricity at the atomic level. (NASA 1) It is also the name for the area of research and technology focused on the use of photovoltaic (PV) cells to produce electricity from light. Photovoltaic cell operation involves the use of a material that absorbs photons of light, the release of electrons that when captured result in an

Solar power is the energy that is retrieved from the sun that is transformed into thermal or electrical energy. It is known to being one of the cleanest and abundant renewable energy source available. Solar energy can be utilized in many forms for instance, photovoltaics (known as solar electric) solar heating and cooling concentrating solar power (typically built at utility scale), and passive solar. (About Solar Energy. n.d.).

In the last decades energy consumption have come to a time where people started noticing the climate changes and the effect of fossil fuel energy for been environmentally destructive, by producing pollutions and other effect. After realizing the effect engineers come up with solar panel, an alternative to fossil fuel energy but less harmful for the environment and the pocket. Solar panels which uses renewable energy like the sun to light homes heat and produces electricity. Unlike fossil fuel solar panels are less harmful for the environment. From it creation few decades ego, just recently solar panel started getting popularity 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 have changed dramatically since then. Even though scientific data shows that solar energy is a better alternative to fossil fuel, many people still wondering about global warming, the benefit and the necessity of solar panels

Photovoltaic energy is not something recently discovered, it actually goes over 160 years The basic science was first discovered in 1839 but the pace of advancement really accelerated in three major thrusts in the 20th century 2 .From the beginning of history in 1839 the french physicist Alexandre Edmond Becquerel conducting an experiment that discovered the light-electricity conversion and Edward Weston who created the first solar cell in 1888 to Albert Einstein paper on the photoelectric effect that things started to begin experimenting with solar cells to create solar energy. It was until 1954 that the commercial solar age began where Bell laboratories created the first Si solar cell achieving 6% of efficiency 2 and primary satellites were the first ones to test those cells.

With such high cost and various amounts of personal and environmental risks from power sources today, alternative energy has proven to be the better deal. There are countless sources of natural energy such as geothermal, Hydropower, a biofuel, to name a few. Studies are being carried out to harness other natural energies like lightning and tidal power.

Solar energy is now a great source of renewable energy. Due to the limited stock of fossil fuel, solar panel systems become more popular day by day. Now Industries, houses and defensive forces are using solar panel systems to generate power. The solar panels generate power from sun radiation. Solar cells are also known as Photovoltaic (PV) cells. When sunlight with a specific frequency hits metal, loosely bound electrons emit from the metal as shown in Figure 1. A potential difference is created in between the cathode and the anode. When the anode and the cathode connect, current flows. Solar panel systems use this mechanism to generate power. Then, generated power is carried out to the battery to store and distribute to the load. The main obstacle for solar panel systems is night and cloudy weather, due to low solar radiation.

Alternative energy can be defined as Energy, as solar, wind, or nuclear energy, that can replace or supplement traditional fossil-fuel sources, such as coal, oil, and natural gas. When thinking about alternative energy sources we generally focus on the main types: nuclear, solar, wind, and hydroelectric. These are things that mainly do not cause pollution and are very environmentally friendly (Alternative Energy). Alternative energy is thought to be renewable and “free.” Biomass Energy, Wind Energy, Solar Energy, Geothermal Energy, and Hydroelectric Energy all have very low carbon emissions compared to the conventional energy sources (Alternative Energy). With using the alternative energy route instead of conventional energy sources, we can help to keep this earth going for a very long time.

efficiency of the solar cells and allow solar energy to become more widespread. Due to the

Even though this work presented in this paper analyzes PV arrays at a very sophisticated level, some basic understanding of the electrical attitude and characteristics of individual PV cells is needed to obtain the big picture. This section contains brief explanations of the PV cell. First, Section 2.1 covers single-diode equivalent circuit model of a PV cell and current-voltage characteristic (I-V). Second, the most common models of PV module performance are discussed in Section 2.2. Last, solar cells connections are described in Section 2.3.

However, the photovoltaic efficiency and production costs has not reached up to the highest level because of the cost related issues and this technology is not able to replace the conventional sources of energy such as coal, gas and nuclear powered generating facilities. Photovoltaic power is used in remote applications such as communications, villages and homes in many developing countries. In many areas the rooftop installation of solar panels is smaller but it is rapidly increasing at a great pace. As the industrial sciences narrow down the cost gap, more applications are increasing and the use of photovoltaic panel has increased.

Roger A.Hinriches and Merlin Kleinbach (2006) declared (claimed) that “every day the earth surface receives thousands of times more energy from the Sun than it consumed in all other resources”. Cleanliness, availability and renewability of solar energy make it virtually ideal. (Grant E.Gardner, 2008). The use of solar energy for production of electricity is based on the photoelectric effect. The photoelectric effect is a process, when light strikes certain metals and, as a result, electrons are emitted from the metal surface. (Hugh D.Young, Roger A.Freedman 2008). Photovoltaic cells (PV), known as solar cells, are devices which collect radiation energy in the form of sunlight and convert into electricity. Solar cells are made of semiconducting materials, especially silicon. Silicon absorbs photons of light which strike the cells. The energy of the absorbed light transfers to the silicon semiconductor, after that this energy pushes electrons out. This is why the can flow freely which leads to the emergence of electric current. The electrical energy from solar cells can then be used directly. However, considerable amount of solar energy on PV cells

Solar cells technology, as a clean power source of new generation, has been great developed in the past 35 years. The market needed for this for the solar cells technology is also greatly increased while module cost is decreased.

The demand for energy is increasing day-by-day and has led to uneven global distribution of primary energy consumption. The non-renewable energy resources like coal and petroleum will eventually run out. So the only option left will be renewable energy resources like sun, wind, waves and

Abstract—Solar cells have long been regarded as the most promising choice for the development of cost-effective and reliable energy. This paper reviews recent progress and challenges in the development of solar cell processing and fabrication. The comparison of various solar technologies and future scope for this are briefly reviewed. Next, the issues and challenges in light trapping and the nature of textured interface, quality of the active-layer material and antireflection coatings are detailed.