Solar Power Primer

November 15, 2010 by SolarInfo
Filed under Home Improvement

Chuck Cox asked:

We have all heard about solar power, but how much do we really know about its inner workings? Solar energy is emitted from the sun in the form of heat and light. And as we all know, this energy sustains all life on our planet. The technologies of today can now make good use of this energy resource. Quite simply, solar power is the process of converting sunlight into electric power. The main technological device that is used to convert sunlight into useable energy is known as a photovoltaic. There are also other items that have been utilized for solar conversion. Some examples of these are thermal converters, solar chimneys and even solar ponds.

Solar power is a much safer and cleaner way of creating electricity and its use has now become an important aspect of structure design. Actually this is what thermal mass is used for as it preserves the heat that the sun delivers to the building and then converts that heat into electricity. Also solar water heaters have also been used quite a bit as not only an efficient way of heating swimming pools, but have also been used for large hotels and sports pools.

Another arena that has used solar power is agriculture. This form of energy has been used quite a bit in greenhouses. As many of them will grow specialty crops, which are usually hard to grow outdoors in the normal atmosphere. Since greenhouses use photovoltaics, which allow plants to photosynthesize, and this causes them to grow faster and stronger. In addition, photovoltaic-powered water pumps are used grazing cattle. There are also evaporation ponds which work in the city and in the country; they are used to harvest salt and clean streams of contaminants.

In areas of the world that are poverty stricken, solar distillation and disinfection techniques have been used to produce potable water for millions of people. Solar kitchens are also used by families, and large buildings, family-scale cookers. These larger solar kitchens concentrate sunlight for cooking. There is also some industrial work done by some very sophisticated concentrating technologies which magnify the rays of the sun for high-temperature material testing, metal smelting and industrial chemical production.

The simplest form of solar energy collection is called the flat plate collector which is a long flat rectangle that is affixed to a roof or building in a sunny area. The dark metal plates absorb and preserve the heat. Coils of tubing are looped within the collector adjacent to the metal plates. These tubes have either air, water or an anti-freeze solution circulating within them. The heat is transferred into the coils and thus the fluid or air as it circulates through the tubing. The air or fluid is either used immediately as hot water, or it is transferred to a well insulated holding tank for later use.

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