leed International, llc

An Introduction to Solar Energy

In today's climate of growing energy needs and increasing environmental concern, alternatives to the use of non-renewable and polluting fossil fuels have to be investigated. One such alternative is solar energy.

Solar energy is quite simply the energy produced directly by the sun and collected elsewhere, normally the Earth. The sun creates its energy through a thermonuclear process that converts about 650,000,0001 tons of hydrogen to helium every second. The process creates heat and electromagnetic radiation. The heat remains in the sun and is instrumental in maintaining the thermonuclear reaction. The electromagnetic radiation (including visible light, infra-red light, and ultra-violet radiation) streams out into space in all directions.

Only a very small fraction of the total radiation produced reaches the Earth. The radiation that does reach the Earth is the indirect source of nearly every type of energy used today. The exceptions are geothermal energy, and nuclear fission and fusion. Even fossil fuels owe their origins to the sun; they were once living plants and animals whose life was dependent upon the sun.

Much of the world's required energy can be supplied directly by solar power. More still can be provided indirectly.

Typical Solar Array in the United States

Due to the nature of solar energy, two components are required to have a functional solar energy generator. These two components are a collector and a storage unit. The collector simply collects the radiation that falls on it and converts a fraction of it to other forms of energy (either electricity and heat or heat alone). The storage unit is required because of the non-constant nature of solar energy; at certain times only a very small amount of radiation will be received. At night or during heavy cloud cover, for example, the amount of energy produced by the collector will be quite small. The storage unit can hold the excess energy produced during the periods of maximum productivity, and release it when the productivity drops. In practice, a backup power supply is usually added, too, for the situations when the amount of energy required is greater than both what is being produced and what is stored in the container.

Methods of collecting and storing solar energy vary depending on the uses planned for the solar generator.

In general, there are three types of collectors and many forms of storage units.

The three types of collectors are flat-plate collectors, focusing collectors, and passive collectors.

Flat-plate collectors are the more commonly used type of collector today. They are arrays of solar panels arranged in a simple plane. They can be of nearly any size, and have an output that is directly related to a few variables including size, facing, and cleanliness. These variables all affect the amount of radiation that falls on the collector. Often these collector panels have automated machinery that keeps them facing the sun. The additional energy they take in due to the correction of facing more than compensates for the energy needed to drive the extra machinery.

Focusing collectors are essentially flat-plane collectors with optical devices arranged to maximize the radiation falling on the focus of the collector. These are currently used only in a few scattered areas. Solar furnaces are examples of this type of collector. Although they can produce far greater amounts of energy at a single point than the flat-plane collectors can, they lose some of the radiation that the flat-plane panels do not. Radiation reflected off the ground will be used by flat-plane panels but usually will be ignored by focusing collectors (in snow covered regions, this reflected radiation can be significant). One other problem with focusing collectors in general is due to temperature. The fragile silicon components that absorb the incoming radiation lose efficiency at high temperatures, and if they get too hot they can even be permanently damaged. The focusing collectors by their very nature can create much higher temperatures and need more safeguards to protect their silicon components.

Passive collectors are completely different from the other two types of collectors. The passive collectors absorb radiation and convert it to heat naturally, without being designed and built to do so. All objects have this property to some extent, but only some objects (like walls) will be able to produce enough heat to make it worthwhile. Often their natural ability to convert radiation to heat is enhanced in some way or another (by being painted black, for example) and a system for transferring the heat to a different location is generally added.

Of all the energy sources available, solar has perhaps the most promise. Numerically, it is capable of producing the raw power required to satisfy the entire planet's energy needs.

Environmentally, it is one of the least destructive of all the sources of energy. Practically, it can be adjusted to power nearly everything except transportation with very little adjustment, and even transportation with some modest modifications to the current general system of travel. Clearly, solar energy is a resource of the future.

Solar Technology of the Future is here Today!