One of the answers to the energy crisis is to apply solar power. Solar power is the energy source of the most powerful and freely available to us now. That is why production of solar energy kits more abundant.
Solar energy kits is slowly taking place in most of the different houses in the world. Householders feel easy, convenient and effective to obtain energy from the sunlight.
The IllumiCharger by Ryan Hess collect and store energy of interior lighting to provide free charging for USB devices in the same way that the solar powered calculators power themselves.
We have regularly reported on sustainable devices for music lovers and here are additional to those who are looking for an iPod dock that runs on solar energy. Soulra iPod Speaker features interesting 8W RMS speaker that powered by onboard solar panel.
Solar energy technologies use energy from the sun to produce heat, light, hot water, electricity, and even cooling, for homes, commercial and industrial.
There are a variety of technological applications that have been developed to take advantage of solar energy. Technology can be read further below.
Photovoltaics System
Solar cells work by converting sunlight directly into electricity. The electrons in the semiconductor material, the material used to capture sunlight, will move when the sun’s energy in the form of photons hit it. Solar energy is forcing the electrons to move, occur continuously, and consequently there is also a continuous electricity production. Process, which turns sunlight (photons) into electricity (voltage), called the photovoltaic effect.
Solar Cell Module
Solar cells are usually organized into modules that each module can consist of 40 solar cells. Some modules can be arranged to form a PV line fitted with a fixed angle facing south. Or even could be placed in a sun-tracking device, to get more solar energy throughout the day. Several rows of PV could produce enough power for a house. As for industrial applications or power companies, hundreds of lines of PV can be linked to form one large PV systems and sufficient to meet the electricity needs.
Thin Film Solar Cell
Thin film solar cells use several layers of semiconductor material with a thickness in the micrometer scale. Technology allows to create solar cells integrated into rooftops to the skylights. Even solar cells are designed for applications having the same power with actual roof.
A product design is not just an isolated object, but also the complex network of relationships that constitute it for what it will be understood in context. This work wants to build a network of environmental sustainability and putting the individual at the center of this network.
José Vicente has designed SOLARIS, a sun shading system.
While many of us are just wondering about a world in which renewable energy will govern every aspect of life, the Romanian-based Shepeleff Stephen, is working on ways to make it as fresh as possible. An engineering student at Transylvania University in Brasov, Stephen imagine a world in which solar energy will make all the green gadgets. The designer has developed a Bluetooth headphones, called the Q-SOUND, which is responsible itself by using solar energy.
Adventures in microsolar supported by microelectronics and MEMS techniques
Representative thin crystalline-silicon photovoltaic cells – these are from 14 to 20 micrometers thick and 0.25 to 1 millimeter across.
Sandia National Laboratories scientists have developed tiny glitter-sized photovoltaic cells that could revolutionize the way solar energy is collected and used.
The tiny cells could turn a person into a walking solar battery charger if they were fastened to flexible substrates molded around unusual shapes, such as clothing.
The solar particles, fabricated of crystalline silicon, hold the potential for a variety of new applications. They are expected eventually to be less expensive and have greater efficiencies than current photovoltaic collectors that are pieced together with 6-inch- square solar wafers.
The cells are fabricated using microelectronic and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) techniques common to today’s electronic foundries.
Sandia lead investigator Greg Nielson said the research team has identified more than 20 benefits of scale for its microphotovoltaic cells. These include new applications, improved performance, potential for reduced costs and higher efficiencies.
“Eventually units could be mass-produced and wrapped around unusual shapes for building-integrated solar, tents and maybe even clothing,” he said. This would make it possible for hunters, hikers or military personnel in the field to recharge batteries for phones, cameras and other electronic devices as they walk or rest.
Sandia project lead Greg Nielson holds a solar cell test prototype with a microscale lens array fastened above it. Together, the cell and lens help create a concentrated photovoltaic unit.
Even better, such microengineered panels could have circuits imprinted that would help perform other functions customarily left to large-scale construction with its attendant need for field construction design and permits.
Said Sandia field engineer Vipin Gupta, “Photovoltaic modules made from these microsized cells for the rooftops of homes and warehouses could have intelligent controls, inverters and even storage built in at the chip level. Such an integrated module could greatly simplify the cumbersome design, bid, permit and grid integration process that our solar technical assistance teams see in the field all the time.”
For large-scale power generation, said Sandia researcher Murat Okandan, “One of the biggest scale benefits is a significant reduction in manufacturing and installation costs compared with current PV techniques.”
Part of the potential cost reduction comes about because microcells require relatively little material to form well-controlled and highly efficient devices.
From 14 to 20 micrometers thick (a human hair is approximately 70 micrometers thick), they are 10 times thinner than conventional 6-inch-by-6-inch brick-sized cells, yet perform at about the same efficiency.
100 times less silicon generates same amount of electricity
“So they use 100 times less silicon to generate the same amount of electricity,” said Okandan. “Since they are much smaller and have fewer mechanical deformations for a given environment than the conventional cells, they may also be more reliable over the long term.”
Another manufacturing convenience is that the cells, because they are only hundreds of micrometers in diameter, can be fabricated from commercial wafers of any size, including today’s 300-millimeter (12-inch) diameter wafers and future 450-millimeter (18-inch) wafers. Further, if one cell proves defective in manufacture, the rest still can be harvested, while if a brick-sized unit goes bad, the entire wafer may be unusable. Also, brick-sized units fabricated larger than the conventional 6-inch-by-6-inch cross section to take advantage of larger wafer size would require thicker power lines to harvest the increased power, creating more cost and possibly shading the wafer. That problem does not exist with the small-cell approach and its individualized wiring.
From left to right, Sandia researchers Murat OKandan, Greg Nielson, and Jose Luis Cruz-Campa, hold samples containing arrays of microsolar cells.
Other unique features are available because the cells are so small. “The shade tolerance of our units to overhead obstructions is better than conventional PV panels,” said Nielson, “because portions of our units not in shade will keep sending out electricity where a partially shaded conventional panel may turn off entirely.”
Because flexible substrates can be easily fabricated, high-efficiency PV for ubiquitous solar power becomes more feasible, said Okandan.
A commercial move to microscale PV cells would be a dramatic change from conventional silicon PV modules composed of arrays of 6-inch-by-6-inch wafers. However, by bringing in techniques normally used in MEMS, electronics and the light-emitting diode (LED) industries (for additional work involving gallium arsenide instead of silicon), the change to small cells should be relatively straightforward, Gupta said.
Each cell is formed on silicon wafers, etched and then released inexpensively in hexagonal shapes, with electrical contacts prefabricated on each piece, by borrowing techniques from integrated circuits and MEMS.
Offering a run for their money to conventional large wafers of crystalline silicon, electricity presently can be harvested from the Sandia-created cells with 14.9 percent efficiency. Off-the-shelf commercial modules range from 13 to 20 percent efficient.
A widely used commercial tool called a pick-and-place machine — the current standard for the mass assembly of electronics — can place up to 130,000 pieces of glitter per hour at electrical contact points preestablished on the substrate; the placement takes place at cooler temperatures. The cost is approximately one-tenth of a cent per piece with the number of cells per module determined by the level of optical concentration and the size of the die, likely to be in the 10,000 to 50,000 cell per square meter range. An alternate technology, still at the lab-bench stage, involves self-assembly of the parts at even lower costs.
Solar concentrators — low-cost, prefabricated, optically efficient microlens arrays — can be placed directly over each glitter-sized cell to increase the number of photons arriving to be converted via the photovoltaic effect into electrons. The small cell size means that cheaper and more efficient short focal length microlens arrays can be fabricated for this purpose.
High-voltage output is possible directly from the modules because of the large number of cells in the array. This should reduce costs associated with wiring, due to reduced resistive losses at higher voltages.
Other possible applications for the technology include satellites and remote sensing.
The project combines expertise from Sandia’s Microsystems Center; Photovoltaics and Grid Integration Group; the Materials, Devices, and Energy Technologies Group; and the National Renewable Energy Lab’s Concentrating Photovoltaics Group.
Involved in the process, in addition to Nielson, Okandan and Gupta, are Jose Luis Cruz-Campa, Paul Resnick, Tammy Pluym, Peggy Clews, Carlos Sanchez, Bill Sweatt, Tony Lentine, Anton Filatov, Mike Sinclair, Mark Overberg, Jeff Nelson, Jennifer Granata, Craig Carmignani, Rick Kemp, Connie Stewart, Jonathan Wierer,
George Wang, Jerry Simmons, Jason Strauch, Judith Lavin and Mark Wanlass (NREL).
The work is supported by DOE’s Solar Energy Technology Program and Sandia’s Laboratory Directed Research & Development program, and has been presented at four technical conferences this year.
The ability of light to produce electrons, and thus electricity, has been known for more than a hundred years.
Solar energy: this term basically does not cause a stirring in the mind as the explanation that comes at hand is indeed too simple. Everyone knows what is meant by solar energy, and that is, the energy that comes from the sun. In its most basic sense, solar energy and other solar residential equipment are nonetheless environment-friendly and not risky at all. But then you need not become one fine environmentalist first before you will be able to come across with whatever advantageous benefit solar residential energy has.
Why is the solar residential energy said to be environment-friendly? What are its general benefits? Practically speaking, when solar residential energy is used, the electrical bills tremendously go down as compared to the other type of residential energy available for all people. Why would you pay for such expensive bills when all you need to do is to employ solar residential energy?
Another major advantage of the solar residential energy is the absence of the very complicated and dangerous wiring. Solar energy lights in the garden path or any other solar energy-powered items used in your residential are ready to be installed less the wiring to be dealt with. In reality, these solar light bulbs are equipped with darkness sensors so they need not be turned on to give off light and they need not be turned off as well when they are no longer needed.
As a sort of simple explanation, the solar light bulbs will simply have to be purchased, taken out of the boxes, installed, and then presto! You just have to situate them where you want them to be and never worry about them ever again.
A List of the Benefits of Solar Residential Energy
Why is the solar residential energy equally beneficial? Why is it more recommended for use? Here are some of its benefits which are truly worth the attention to be graced by anyone:
Solar residential energy is environmentally friendly. As mentioned a while ago, solar residential energy will not harm the environmental features. It is specifically clean and renewable as well. More so, it does not cause pollution just like what the rest of the traditional electrical forms do.
Solar residential energy systems need the least maintenance. They are not fuel-powered so no need to buy the refills.
Solar residential energy makes you save a lot of money. The energy that is derived from the sun can be accessed for free as you make use of solar lights, solar panels, and the likes. The federal government most of the time gives out financial incentives. You don’t get affected by the rise of the fuel rates since you are using solar residential energy.
Making use of the solar residential energy makes you entirely independent from the foreign and centralized energy sources. Power outages will not likely affect you in any manner.
Most of the solar energy items are very easy to install thus lessening the complicated work of the wiring systems.
Some Common Disadvantages of the Solar Residential Energy
Of course the disadvantages will not be taken aside. Here are some of the most common disadvantages of the solar residential energy:
The employment of a solar residential energy can be expensive at first. But as time passes by, it becomes light to the pocket.
The strength of the solar residential energy will relatively depend on the location of your residence in relation with its facing to the sun. Also, the area of your residence is another point to consider. You will need large areas to install the solar panels.
The Various Solar Energy Items
There are lots of solar energy devices that you may opt to buy. Included are the solar flashlights, solar heaters, car ventilators, solar video cameras, solar radios, solar pool purifier, solar mosquito inhibitor, solar lighting, and solar fountain pumps.
What You Must Do
Back in the earlier years, solar energy powered devices were very costly that very few homeowners made use of the solar residential energy. But these days, small volumes of solar energy devices are put up for sale therefore making it affordable for all. If you don’t have enough money to fund these items you can always start small.
Executive Summary about Solar Battery Charger by Anna Stone
Solar Battery Chargers are used to charge your batteries when you are not connected to the power grids and do not have access to another form of electricity. The way a Solar Charger works is simple. The solar panel of the battery charger collects energy from the sun and converts this into electricity. Now, there are many different types of solar battery chargers, as well as different types of batteries you might want to charge. Some solar chargers are more powerful than others. As all solar battery chargers use some type of solar panel, the amount of power they generate generally depends on the size of the panels. Solar panels are made up of individual solar cells. Solar cells are the units which create electricity out of sunlight. The more solar cells there are on a solar panel, the more electricity they create. So you will generally find that bigger solar panels produced more energy, and smaller solar panels produce less.
Some solar battery chargers work with simple AA batteries, like those that you would use to run a flashlight. Some charge the batteries of your equipment, such as the battery in your laptop computer.
You might ask why one uses a solar charger to charge a battery, instead of just directly running one’s equipment from a solar panel.
The sun’s heat might damage your cell phone. There are a variety of solar battery chargers and other portable solar power devices available on the market today. Further information and answers to common questions can be found at Solar Chargers and Portable Solar Power Devices.
How Solar Powered Battery Chargers Can Ease Your Everyday’s Life
Executive Summary about Solar Battery Charger by Assaf Katzir
Solar battery charger is one of these devices that became a necessity once we have all these electric devices that we use on a daily basis. iPod, laptop, mobile phone, PDA, GPS etc’ just name it. There are portable flexible solar panels that you can place in your small bag and use them to charge your electrical devices’ batteries when you need to without being attached to any electrical grid outlet. Most solar chargers are equipped with plug kits which match to variety of electric devices. The variety of solar chargers’ sizes, shapes and uses continue to grow rapidly.
There is no usage cost when using solar battery chargers as opposed to the utility electricity chargers. No pollution released to the atmosphere when using portable solar charger and no chemicals leached into our ground water when discarded since we are using rechargeable batteries, so you contribute to keep environment clean, not to mention that you save money when you use a solar charger.
As you can see there are many benefits and advantages while using solar powered battery charger.
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