Thứ Ba, 15 tháng 1, 2013

Solar Panels - A Walk Through History

Technology has grown to the level where now planes are becoming green. The jet which could run on solar power is near invention. The plane has solar panels fixed on the upper side so that it can produce power from the sun light. This is the advancement in science. But when thinking about it, this was not a day's work. It starts way back in 1876 when Mr. Adams discovered that selenium can generate electric current when exposed to light. This discovery paved way for the new concept of producing electricity from solid materials without actually heating or moving it.
Though the idea was revolutionary, the power that could be generated from this material was highly limited. Moreover this method proved to be very expensive. As the world progressed both in science and humanity, man understood the need for renewable resources and greener resources as the coal from which power was generated using heat energy was becoming extinct and the pollution caused by it was also huge. Such type of energy will soon become rare and the need for alternate energy arose. This was when solar panels were largely researched all throughout the world. Only in the late 1900s it became more prevalent. NASA and other such organizations conducted research on such panels. It was implemented as photovoltaic system. Later with research, it was found that solar panels with thin film solar cells can give a better energy efficiency of about 10% than that of copper sulfide.
The first solar aircraft was built in 1981 with about 16,000 solar cells mounted on the top in solar panels. Though not successful it was a valuable. Soon after this many solar power vehicles were launched that could do a variety of operations. These vehicles had solar panels fixed on the top to capture sun light. Soon after this, the UD Department of Energy began the Solar One. It was a mega project to demonstrate the suitability of solar power to produce energy. The project gave an output of 10 megawatt of power making another milestone in the development of solar panels. Soon the sales and research in solar cells and how to use such panels to tap solar energy and to convert it into power sky rocketed. Within a few years, the world wide production of power from photovoltaic cell exceeded 22 megawatts. In 1986 the world's largest solar power facility was built in California.
The buildings that were built after this, including the sky scrapers had solar panels on the top to make use of the sunlight. With more research, instead of one photovoltaic layer, three layers were used that provided much better efficiency in the usage of solar energy to convert it into electricity. Solar panels were manufactured in large scale as there was a high demand for them both in the consumer and the industrial market. With the rise in demand, research intensified to produce more lighter and efficient solar panels. This then lead to the thin film solar module technology which broke the previous records for performance. NASA released a flying plane that could fly 19 miles up in the air without any rocket engines but only using solar panels and solar energy.
Even common people have started to use these panels in their every life. In houses it was put under use to conserve electricity and to become independent at least to a small extent. This gave the house holds a way to make use of the sun's energy via these panels to produce power which can be used both during night and day. In satellites to make them independent with power, it was embedded with solar panels in its wings to produce the power needed to sustain itself. This led to launching of more satellites. Now solar panels are put under intense research for the use of space travel.
The resources used for producing power must be renewable so that nothing from earth is permanently destroyed like the usage of coal. The best and most reliable option for greener power is the solar power.
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