What Are Solar Panels & How Do They work?

"Solar Panels - What Are Solar Panels and Why Should We Use Them For Creating Energy?"

So lets start off by answering the question, "What Are solar panels?"

Solar panels are a form of active solar power. This is a term that is widely used that describes how solar panels make use of the sun's energy. You see solar panels harvest the sunlight and then it converts the sunlight into electricity. What happens is that solar cells or photovoltaic cells are arranged in a grid-like pattern on the surface of the solar panel. These solar voltaic cells collect sunlight when the sun is shine during the day and turns the sun's light into energy! Pretty coo eh?

How Much Electricity Can Solar Panels Produce?

This is a good question and can be answered effectively. You see in direct sunlight at the very surface of the equator, a maximally efficient photovoltaic cell about 1/5m in diameter creates a current of about 2 amps at 2 volts. Due to the earths atmospheric interference, a terran solar panel will perhaps never perform as well as solar panels that are exposed to the sun's rays.

It is important to note that years of over heating and wear and tear can reduce the operation efficiency of a solar panel. The solar cells become less efficient as time passes by. Any excess energy is released into its thermally conductive substrate as infrared heat. The actual amount of power that solar panels produce is influenced by the quality of the solar panel itself. The materials and technology used to manufacture the solar panel and the amount of time the unit has been used all comes into consideration when measuring the amount of power the solar panel produces.

Where does the solar energy come from?

Many people wonder where solar energy actually comes from. If you have any queries on this... then listen up as we are about to explain.

Solar energy comes from the sun. The sun has a continuous stream of thermonuclear explosions as hydrogen atoms fuse into helium atoms. We encounter the resultant energy as radiation that strikes the surface of the earth. What Solar panels do, is it converts this solar radiation into useful electrical energy that we can use to power our home appliances such as our TV, Cooker, Radio, washing machine etc.

In fact it captures the suns energy and stores it into batteries for our use. There is enough solar radiation that strikes the earth every day to meet earth's energy need for an entire year. So simply put, solar panels do help us to harvest this energy from the sun and convert it into usable energy to meet the everyday needs of our modern life!

What are the advantages of Solar Panels?

Perhaps the most widely known and obvious advantage of solar panels is the fact that they are clean to use! While they generate electricity from sun light, they produce virtually no pollution at all. Solar panels can actually free up an entire household from its reliance on the power grid and the large energy suppliers. So once you make the initial investment for the hardware of a solar panel, you will have free electricity as long as you continue to use it!

Disadvantages?

Well yes.. there perhaps is one major disadvantage to a solar panel and that is the cost of purchasing one of these units. Solar panels are pricey and there are many households that are priced out of the market simply because of the large expense associated with them. A solar panel can range anywhere from a few thousands dollars to ten's of thousands of dollars price. So you can see where there major flaw is. However, you don't have to go down this particular route. Its possible for you to own a solar panel for your home by actually building your own solar panel device. Interested? Check out our recommend product here!