The Impact Of Solar Technology On The Environment

Solar Power has been observed as early as the year of 1839 by a French physicist named Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel. He invented the first photovoltaic cell. Since then his studies and works have been perfected on and continue to change the world in which we live for the better. Photovoltaic cells have constantly been evolving ever since. In 1883, Charles Fritts built the first solid state photovoltaic cell using materials such as gold and selenium. With further advances to the system, scientist were able to recreate the cell in a way that could serve as an alternative power source on the satellite named Vanguard that was flown into space in the year of 1958. In the 1970’s there was an oil crisis when Middle Eastern countries proclaimed a trading ban, encouraging oil companies to buy solar firms. Funded research allowed for first, second and third generation cells to be constructed. Currently, the cost of solar energy has exponentially decreased with the falling price of silicon, allowing for many new innovations to take place.

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

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.

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

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.

Similar to Karllson Data, many major technology companies are implementing initiatives to increase sustainability in response to stakeholder concerns. Popular sources of renewable energy for large corporations include solar panels, hydroelectricity, and wind turbines. Leading corporations, such as Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon, have integrated multiple renewable energy sources into their infrastructures, paving the way for smaller start-up technology companies to adopt similar principles of sustainability.

"For years, scientists have been trying to come up with a way to use the same energy system that plants do but with an altered end output. Using nothing but sunlight as the energy input, plants execute massive energy conversions, turning billions of CO2 into energy for animals in the form of food, every year, using only 3% percent of the sunlight that reaches Earth" (Layton, 2012). The power that is accessible in sunlight is an under used source that has only just lately started to truly be assessed. Present photovoltaic-cell technology, which is characteristically a semiconductor-based system, is very pricey, not very adept, and only does direct alterations to electricity from sunlight. There problem is that is that there is currently no way for the energy output to be stored for later use. One way to

There are many resources that can be used to provide energy for life on earth. Some of those resources are better than others in terms of their environmental effect. An example of one of these “better” resources is the photovoltaic cell. A photovoltaic cell or solar cell converts light energy into electricity. This electricity in turn, can be used to power many aspects of human life such as; turning on lights or a television, charging a phone or driving a car. Photovoltaic cells also involve a great deal of chemistry from how they convert light energy to chemical energy, down to its own structural components. The basic process of energy conversion involves a semiconductor cell made of Silicon interacting with photons and

There is basic knowledge known about solar power, but do we know as much as we should? The answer is no. Citizens and everyday people living in the United States do not know as much as they should about solar power. Because these people do not know as much as one should, the government should allow more money to be spent on researching and finding improvements to solar power for several reasons. Despite how much knowledge we know about solar power, the US government should fund research for solar power to better the environment.

Discuss environmental impacts of power generation from fossil fuel, specially the impacts by coal-fired power plants.

Solar photovoltaic (PV): The transmutation of sunlight directly into electricity by using photovoltaic cells. Photovoltaic systems can be lodge on rooftops, integrated at the top of building designs and vehicles, or scaled up to megawatt scale power plants.

Photovoltaic cell is of grate impart in the Morden market of electrical generating sector, commonly used by industries and private home etc. as a source of electricity , which have been of existence since , 1950s ‘Inventors at Bell Labs (Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson) developed a more efficient PV cell (6%)

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.