Solar Energy - The technology behind this eco friendly energy generator and if its wise to buy them now.
Solar panels can be built to change the incredible energy from our sun to some other kind of productive energy. Generally the energy that results will be in the form of heat (to heat water for example) or electricity that might be used to power anything from a small mp3 player to a complete house.
In this commentary we are going to discuss the bigger residential and industrial panels which are designed to provide power for the home or business, where these panels are most often put on the top of the home or close to the home if space permits. We are going to concentrate our discussion on the kind of panels that generate electricity known as Photovoltaic panels.
Solar panels are a great way to reduce energy costs and to cut your carbon footprint, and to become more self-sufficient. Solar Panels are now becoming extremely popular in inner-city areas where clean energy advocates and law makers are creating incentives for this green and quiet alternative electricity source. The state of Florida, for example, has been offering massive rebates on the up-front capital cost in acquiring and implementing a residential solar system.
After the panels are operational, power from the solar system is used to energize the house, or, when electricity is being made that exceeds demand, diverted for use on the grid, where it is purchased back by the electrical power company. There may be times when you are actually making income from your panels. With rebates factored into the initial pricing it will generally take from 17 to twenty-three years to get back the initial investment, at which time the system will essentially be generating power from the sun without cost.
One little-considered fact, however, is that solar panels are, at first, contributory to carbon emissions due to the fact that it requires an input of energy to build the solar panel, that this energy is most often carbon-based, and front-end loaded, and therefore there is a time period during which the cell has actually added to carbon emissions rather than subtracted from them. Until such time as the solar panel has produced electricity that is equivalent to the energy used to manufacture it (its fossil-emission payback period) it is actually a contributor to carbon emissions. This fossil-emission payback period is normally considered to be four to ten years.
Low power solar panels are normally available in 12 volt or 14 volt configurations, while many high power panels are available in 24 v. As solar panels are Direct Current, you will normally need a power inverter that uprates it from one-voltage as DC to another-voltage Alternating Current to make it compatible with the energy that enters the house and the power grid.
Todays solar panels are manufactured using twin sheets of semiconducting silicon, combined with phosphorus and boron atoms. Amorphous silicon solar panels are a highly powerful, emerging line of photovoltaics that differ in voltage, wattage, structure, and manufacture than traditional photovoltaics which use crystalline silicon. Another type, H-AS solar panels are manufactured in a similar way, but they are merely one micrometer in depth by depositing polymorphous silicon at high pressures and temperatures.
Solar panels are generally maintenance free and almost all of the manufacturing companies will supply a guarantee of electrical output sometimes for as long as 25 years.
Solar panels are normally installed on the side of your house gets the most solar exposure. In those locations south of the equator this would be the north-facing aspect, and in places north of the equatorial line its the south-facing aspect.
Peter is a contributing writer to Fuzing.com. This article is brought to you in conjunction with trade leads from the Electronics and Electrical section of our Business to Business site.
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