Solar Power- A Viable Solution for the Energy Crisis
All living things need sunlight for their growth. We humans need solar energy for our day-to-day living. You hang your washed wet clothes outside in the sun for drying. The major food products come from plants that use sunlight for making their food. Moreover, the energy resources we use such as coal, oil and natural gas are there because of the solar energy converting plants into fossil fuels over a period of millions of years. In other words, fossil fuel is actually stored sunlight.
Sun is the largest and universally available source of energy. We have been using solar energy in different forms and now we have started harnessing the solar power to meet our day-to-day energy requirements such as heating water, heating buildings and lighting. With advanced research and development in technology for harnessing solar power, generating electricity from solar energy is made possible. Solar power thus produced is safe for the environment and cost effective because there is no expense involved for using sunrays, the only active ingredient for generating solar power.
Solar Energy as a Source of Electricity
Solar energy can be a great source of electricity. Many solar power plants are using solar power for generating electricity, which is then distributed through the power grids. Solar power plants make use of highly curved mirrors to focus the sunlight on the pipe that is down the mirror. The curved mirrors generate extremely high temperatures and boil the water in the pipes to convert water in steam. This steam can further be used to convert run the turbines or generators to produce electricity. The only problem with the solar power plants is that they work only during the day.
Electricity can be produced directly from sunlight by the use of solar cells or photovoltaic cells. The photovoltaic (PV) cells are normally found in appliances like calculators, and watches. The Photovoltaic cells, made of silicon are also used for meeting the energy requirements of spacecrafts orbiting the earth.
The PV cells bring about a chemical reaction in the Sunlight and generate electric charge by molecular activity. This electric charge generates Direct Current (DC). The DC power thus produced could be converted to AC power with the use of an inverter. Alternatively, you can store the DC power in a battery and use it later when you do not have direct sunlight.
A PV module is a group of these solar cells and the further group of PV modules forms an array to generate sufficient power for lighting and other applications. This solar energy produced in this manner can be used for lights and appliances at home. Other uses of solar power include the energy for batteries that used to light roadside billboard during night and for providing electric current to the cars running on the road.
