Tag Archive | "sunlight"

10 Facts of Alternative Energy

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1. The largest solar power plant is in California. Located in the Mojave desert, the solar energy generating system produces ample energy to meet the electricity needs of half a million people. This amount of electricity is enough to light up the entire city of Sacremento.

2. Japan consumes about half of the world’s solar panel used for collecting and converting solar energy into power. There solar panels in Japan are used to provide power to the residential sector of the country connected to the grid.

3. Solar energy are divided into two types. Firstly, passive solar energy, this converts sunlight into reusable energy without the help of other energy sources. Secondly active solar energy which harnesses the suns energy with a mechanical or electrical system which converts it into usable energy like electricity.

4. The used the concept of burning mirrors to ignite fire in the 700 B.C. From this the concept of harnessing the solar energy came in. In the 15th century burning mirrors were used to solder copper sections of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence. Also the Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, from the same era, contains designs for solar concentrators which were used to heat water.

5. The amount of energy which the sun exhibits every hour is more than enough to power the earth for an entire year.

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Solar Panels And Biodiversity

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Solar panels use is increasing day by day as it is a key ingredient to produce eco-friendly and renewable source of energy. As the energy need will increase in future so far that a lot number of solar panels will be used all over the world. But researchers take it as an eco-conservative concern.

Solar Panels Threat to Biodiversity

Danger to biodiversity

Mr. Bruce Robertson, Research Associate, from Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan State University says that it is a possible threat to biodiversity. He told that shining dark surface of the solar cells, which reflect the sunlight is same like water surfaces that result aquatic insects like mayflies depositing their eggs on the solar panels. The solar panels will be posing a false habitat hazard to more than 300 species of insect. It will lead to a reproductive failure that may have far-reaching cascading adverse effects to the food chain. These insects fall prey to predators. This data was given in the research which was held in Hungary. Read the full story

Solar Electric Fence

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Electric fences are cost-effective, alternative to traditional fencing. These electrical fences are safer for animals than wire fencing. But question is that how to make electric fence if no alternate current is available. Well don’t worry you can install solar powered electric fence easily.

Solar Electric Fence

Here are the instructions to create a solar electric fence:

  • First of all choose a fence system which is suitable for your application. Which animals you want to control, and whether the fence will be temporary or permanent.
  • Buy solar fence charger and its accessories. Surf on internet about solar electric fence or if you have any such farm nearby then visit there, then go to hardware stores for comparing the systems.
  • When you start with your fence, start with end and corner posts and stretching a string between them to mark where to place your line posts. When line post are set then stretch the wire or mesh, which you selected around the perimeter. Then attach the insulators and tensioners.
  • Fit the solar electric fence charger on the one end of the fence on a brawny mounting plane for example, a building or wooden post in direct sunlight facing south. Then dig a shallow trench to make a ground bed near the fence charger and drive in the number of ground rods recommended for your installation. In final step, attach the negative (ground) lead to the grounding rods and the positive lead to the fence.
  • You must charge the charger in the direct sunlight for at least 24 hours before energizing the fence. After 24 hours, when you energize the fence then check energizing of fence regularly. For checking always use electric fence tester.

Advantages and Disadvantages Of Using Solar Panels

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With the increase in awareness about the depleting natural resources, the lookout for new, renewable, and cleaner energy sources has also gained pace.

Solar energy is one of the main sources of renewable energy. Being clean and free of cost, it can be utilized easily to generate energy. Solar panels are used to harness the sun’s energy, but it does not come without any pros and cons.

Advantages of Solar Panels

1. Accessibility

Solar panels allow you to obtain energy from an alternative source rather than the main power grid. This eliminates the need of having long power lines running to your home. This can prove to be especially beneficial for houses that are located in far off areas.

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Installing Solar Cells In Your Home

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Solar cells can be used to directly convert sunlight into electricity, making the home owners more energy independent. Most commonly, solar cells in homes are used through the installation of solar panels.

solar home

Solar panels can collect sunlight during the day and transform it into energy. The stored energy can be used to supply power to the home by heating water and producing electricity. Although installing the solar panels can be simple, but it can be physically demanding.

1. First of all, you need to purchase a solar panel mounting kit. Usually, kits contain the same types of materials, such as solar panels, mounts, hardware, an inverter, and a voltage gauge. You can purchase the kits at any home improvement store.

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Four Main Sources Of Renewable Energy

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With only a limited supply of oil and gas available on Earth, it is extremely important to find alternative sources of energy or else with the depletion of these natural resources, humans will be unable to fulfill a number of basic requirements.

4 sources

Renewable energy can be defined as any form of power that is derived from a source that cannot be depleted. Wind, solar, geothermal and tidal are examples of renewable energy.

There are several benefits of using renewable energy. It has some dominant environmental, economic and societal advantages. Renewable energy sources do not need any fossil fuels to generate power, which makes them environment friendly. Following are the main sources of renewable energy.

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Specifics about Solar Energy

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Installation of solar panels at home assists you in two ways; one is that you get cheapest energy for your home and second it increases your home value. Modern solar systems are more accurate, efficient and easy to install. Though initially installation of solar panels cost you much, but on long term you really know that your investment won’t go in vain. When the solar panel will be installed, the costs depreciate over time. The system itself adds value to your home. Overall, you get inner satisfaction that you are using clean and non-polluting systems.

Six Things That Makes Solar Energy a Better Choice:

  1. Unlike other energy sources like oil, coal, or natural gas, solar energy is a free source.
  2. If you sell back the extra electricity to the electric company made by your solar panel, you can have no electric company bill. Read the full story

Ten Major Benefits of Solar Energy

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Sunlight is made of tiny packets of energy called photons. Every minute enough of this free energy reaches the earth that it can meet all of the world’s energy needs for a full year.

Solar Energy

I will discuss here the major ten benefits of the solar energy:

1 - First of all we knew that solar energy is a renewable energy. So there is no need to worry that sunlight will run out or will be used all up. Sun is a permanent source of energy and it will be there everyday.

2 – Solar energy is having no harm impact on the environment means its environment friendly. As fossil fuels that release the greenhouse gases, carcinogens and carbon dioxide while solar cells don’t release any harmful elements in the atmosphere.

3 – Solar panels are so much durable and are having no moving parts that you worry about replacing anything. Read the full story

Solutions To The Solar Powering Problems

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Solar energy may be the most abundant source of energy, but many people avoid its usage due to the uncertainty of the weather. If you use solar energy to power your house, then what do you do on a cloudy or rainy day?

solar probs

There are three main alternative options available that can provide unlimited power even if the sun isn’t cooperating. In case you want to live independently, completely off the grid, but can’t trust your PV panels to supply all the electricity you’ll need all the time, you can use a backup generator when the solar generation becomes low.

Solar Powering Your House

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We all want to make use of the solar energy, using to power our houses. Although it’s not as simple as just placing some modules on your roof, it’s not very difficult to do either.

solar house

The first thing to consider is the direction of your house as every roof does not have the correct orientation or angle of inclination to take full advantage of the sun’s energy.

Ideally, non-tracking PV systems in the Northern Hemisphere should point toward true south, but orientations that face in more easterly and westerly directions can work too, with decreased efficiency howsoever.

Energy Loss In A Solar Cell

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Whenever we think of solar energy, we assume that it is just simple sunlight, ignoring the fact that visible light is just part of the complete electromagnetic spectrum.

energy loss

It is important to keep in mind that electromagnetic radiation is not monochromatic, it’s made up of a wide range of different wavelengths, and therefore different energy levels.

It is possible to separate light into different wavelengths, which can be seen in the form of a rainbow. And as the light that falls on our solar cell has multiple photons carrying different ranges of energies, some of these photons don’t have enough energy to alter an electron-hole pair.