Energy from the sun has powered life on Earth for many millions of years.
Our Sun outputs a massive amount of energy every second, and has been for over 4 billion years. The amount of energy the Sun puts out is around 3.4 Yattowatts, or 3.4×10^26 watts. All of this energy can be converted into different useful forms, such as, electricity and heat.
Most solar energy can be collecting with no noise and no pollution. It’s easy and simply green energy.
There are three different categories of solar energy collection that I like to group them into:
Photovoltaic (PV) – These are most commonly known as solar panels or solar cells. They are typically flat and change the sunlight directly into electricity. Solar panels can be used in a wide range of applications ranging from small cell that powers calculators, to systems that power single homes, to large power plants that provide power to thousands of homes.
Concentrating Solar Power – This is where heat is collected in some form or another. For example, a heliostats uses mirrors to concentrate a massive amount of sunlight into a small area creating a lot of heat, and uses that heat to drive a turbine.
Solar Collectors – These are anytime the solar collectors, which collect the Sun’s energy in the form of heat, are used. This could be for a solar water heater, solar air heater, or even used power a electrical generator.
There are a few drawback of solar:
The amount of sun light that arrives at the Earth’s surface is not constant. It depends on the weather, season, time of day, and location.
Large surface area is required to collect the solar energy at a useful rate, because the sun doesn’t deliver that much energy to any one place at any one time.
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