The Ecology Of Design / Spring 2014

Energy is an important factor in todays society, it is neccesary to power business, manufacturing and the transportation of goods and services all around the world. Solar powered energy is energy from the sun. This energy can be conerted into different energy like heat and electricity. Heat can be used to heat water or heat spaces, for example heating for houses, buildings or even swimming pools. Solar energy can be converted in two ways, by Photovoltaic or “solar cells” which change sunlight directly into electricity or by concentrating solar power plants which generate electricity by using heat from solar thermal collectors. Coal powered energy has played an important role in

The creation of solar energy requires little maintenance and solar electricity power plants produce zero emissions. Solar power plants use two different types of technologies: Concentrated solar power and Photovoltaic systems. Concentrated solar power plants, also known as “concentrated solar thermal”, uses solar thermal energy to make steam that is converted into electricity by a turbine. A photovoltaic system, also known as solar panels, generates electricity from sunlight. It is a device that converts light energy into electrical energy.

Solar energy is created by converting sunlight into electricity using photovoltaics (PV) or the less common

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.

A solar photovoltaic power system is a technology that converts the energy from sunlight into electrical energy. Residential solar photovoltaic systems can offset much of a household's power needs, depending on the size of the system and the household's needs. The output power from is directly proportional to power received from the sun, which varies throughout the day and year. The rated maximum output of the module might be achieved only occasionally, depending on actual site conditions. It is a renewable source of energy that is sustainable and totally inexhaustible. Solar energy is also a non-polluting source of energy that doesn’t emit any greenhouse gases when producing electricity.

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 panel absorbs sunrays as a source of energy to produce electricity. They usually comprise of smaller units known as photovoltaic cells (PV). They are the means of conversion. Electrical energy is converted into mechanical energy by means of a machine called electric motor.

Solar energy is a type of energy that is used in many households all around the world it is a renewable resource meaning once you use it you can replace it. It is a great energy source that is going to rule over coal and oil when we run out of fossil fuels. Electricity received from the panels is light energy that has been converted.

There are two main forms of solar power: The use of photovoltaic, or PV, cells, and the use of thermal energy from the sun. Photovoltaic cells exploit the photoelectric effect, which converts the protons from the light of the sun into electrons, which can be converted into energy. Photovoltaic energy accounts for fifteen gigawatts of global energy, which is equivalent to fifteen large electric power plants. Also, the production of PV cells has increased by two thousand times over the past twenty years, and it is expected to continue to grow. Solar-thermal energy takes the thermal energy created by the sun and turns it into electricity. Although it only only produces as much energy as one large power plant, solar-thermal energy has many domestic uses. It can not only be used for electricity, but also for solar heating, which uses sunlight to heat up houses. Solar power has already proven to be a reliant source of energy, and it will only continue to improve in technology and

Basically, Photovoltaic (PV) panels use layers of silicone doped with other materials and sandwiched together to extract free electrons using sunlight. A dopant on one side of the panel generates a negative charge and on the other side a dopant generates a positive one. This creates an electric field and when sunlight passes through the panel it has the chance to knock an electron off an atom. Metal plates on the sides then collect these electrons, because of the potential from the electric field, and a current is generated which goes on to be converted to alternating current in an inverter and then used to power our homes (Dhar, 2013). Photovoltaic panels are ideal for any residential application because they require little to no maintenance as they have no moving parts, they can just be set up and run as much as necessary to supplement household power. Unfortunately though they only supply power when the sun is out so they would never be able to be the primary power source for a home. Commercially, thermal plants have the ability to produce large amounts of power in multiple phases and as technology improves it may soon even be able to run around the

Commonly, renewable energy is defined as energy which is able to be captured from existing natural resources that are replenished rapidly, such as flowing water, sunshine, wind, geothermal heat flows and ocean [2]. Renewable energy technologies are required to provide technologies to use one or several renewable energy resources. There are some different types of renewable energy technologies, which include solar energy, bioenergy, hydropower, wind energy, geothermal energy and tidal energy. This thesis project will focus on the solar photovoltaic which is currently one of types of solar energy technologies, and this technology using photovoltaic cells to converts sunlight directly into electricity.Solar photovoltaic system can generate electricity from sunlight through using PV modules, and the system can be integrated into building designs, installed on rooftops, or large scale power plant. With the development of photovoltaic technologies, solar photovoltaic capacity has been increased from 3.7 GW (2004) to 177GW (2014) [3]. Figure 2 shows this change from 2004 to 2014, there is a big trend of increase in these years. The increase of PV capacity can reduce the carbon emission and provides more job opportunities. It also helps to reduce air pollution and make a friendly environment for living. One of the common PV system is

For wind, its kinetic energy turns rotor blades of the windmill and the rotor turns and shaft connected to a generator. DC output can be stored in battery or converted to AC and fed into a grid. Minimum wind speeds are required to produce electricity and the Midwest and offshore areas provide such conditions (Hinrichs 398). Like most forms of energy, efficient storage is key. Wind is not constant and money would be put towards research and development to find the most efficient way to store wind energy. For solar, photovoltaic cells convert the suns energy directly into electricity. (Hinrchs 375). Photovoltaic cells are made of silicon, which is plentiful. When radiation hits a cell, electrons are knocked free and this photoelectric effect creates a direct current, which is converted to an alternating current (“Solar Energy”). For solar concentration systems, mirrors are manipulated to redirect the sun’s rays to heat water. The flashing water creates steam and like other energy producing plants, the steam is used to turn a turbine. The mechanical energy is then turned into electrical energy (“How It Works”).

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

Solar power harness the sun 's energy to create electricity. Solar energy assets are enormous and boundless, and they can be tackled anyplace that gets sunlight. The measure of solar radiation, otherwise called insolation, coming to the earth 's surface consistently is more than all the energy at present devoured by every single human activity yearly [1]. Various variables, including geographic area, time of day, and current climate conditions, all influence the measure of energy that can engage in for electricity creation or heating purposes.

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.