What is a Solar Panel? How it Works?
If you truly wish your source of energy to be independent, there are only a few choices: solar in the form of solar electric panels, hot water panels, and passive heating; wind generators for electric production and windmills for water pumping; and hydro electric generators.
A good rule of thumb is that once you eliminate the use of electricity for space heating, water heating, and cooking (electric stoves), most any house can be operated successfully from a solar, wind, or hydro system.
What is a Solar Panel?
Solar panels generate free power from the sun by converting sunlight to electricity with no moving parts, zero emissions, and no maintenance. The solar panel, the first component of a Solar Power System, is a collection of individual silicon cells that generate electricity from sunlight. The photons (light particles) produce an electrical current as they strike the surface of the thin silicon wafers. A single solar cell produces only about 1/2 (.5) of a volt. However, a typical 12 volt panel about 25 inches by 54 inches will contain 36 cells wired in series to produce about 17 volts peak output. If the solar panel can be configured for 24 volt output, there will be 72 cells so the two 12 volt groups of 36 each can be wired in series, usually with a jumper, allowing the solar panel to output 24 volts. When under load (charging batteries for example), this voltage drops to 12 to 14 volts (for a 12 volt configuration) resulting in 75 to 100 watts for a panel of this size.
Multiple solar panels can be wired in parallel to increase current capacity (more power) and wired in series to increase voltage for 24, 48, or even higher voltage systems. The advantage of using a higher voltage output at the solar panels is that smaller wire sizes can be used to transfer the electric power from the solar panel array to the charge controller & batteries.
Basic Types of Solar Panels
Monocrystalline solar panels: The most efficient and expensive solar panels are made with Monocrystalline cells. These solar cells use very pure silicon and involve a complicated crystal growth process. Long silicon rods are produced which are cut into slices of .2 to .4 mm thick discs or wafers which are then processed into individual cells that are wired together in the solar panel.
Polycrystalline solar panels: Often called Multi-crystalline, solar panels made with Polycrystalline cells are a little less expensive & slightly less efficient than Monocrystalline cells because the cells are not grown in single crystals but in a large block of many crystals. This is what gives them that striking shattered glass appearance. Like Monocrystalline cells, they are also then sliced into wafers to produce the individual cells that make up the solar panel.
Amorphous solar panels: These are not really crystals, but a thin layer of silicon deposited on a base material such as metal or glass to create the solar panel. These Amorphous solar panels are much cheaper, but their energy efficiency is also much less so more square footage is required to produce the same amount of power as the Monocrystalline or Polycrystalline type of solar panel. Amorphous solar panels can even be made into long sheets of roofing material to cover large areas of a south facing roof surface.
Are you considering installing solar panels for your home?
Solar panels can be a great investment that not only saves you money and increases the value of your property, but also helps the environment while it's helping your wallet and bank account.
You may probably wondering, commercially made Solar Panels are very expensive. Alternatively, you can build your own solar panel, if you can do some handyman work. Homemade solar panels are a lot cheaper comparing to their commercially made counterparts. Making solar panels really isn't as complicated as you might think. To build a solar panel you will need some basic materials and a budget of about 0-0 per solar panel that you want to build.
Click Here For Free Guide to Making Solar Panels
Frequently Asked Questions
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QUESTION:
Is it possible, and if so, then how can I, get a free guide to making cheap, efficient solar panels?
I want to reduce my carbon footprint, and solar energy is completely renewable, and 100% clean energy, so I need help figuring out how to make solar panels that will power my entire house and will eliminate my reliance on the power grid completely (or at least 80%+).-
ANSWER:
Everything in the body of your question is laudable, and possible, except for the part about "cheap."Solar electric is generally a large (k or more) up-front investment, and a cost savings over time, as well as environmental benefit. And in many areas, it would never recover its initial investment, not at today's prices. Costs continue to fall, though.
The internet is full of sites that suggest you can power your whole house with just 0 or less of homemade panels. As to the information, you could probably find it through a bittorrent search site, by looking for "solar panel", and would see that the kind of information being sold is not practical at all. See http://www.nlcpr.com/Deceptions6.php for a rebuttal to these scams.
You could build your own solar water heater, and plans will come up in Google.
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QUESTION:
What are some good schools to learn about making Solar Panels ?
A friend of mines is looking to get into this field having trouble finding some good ones if you have a site or a few good ones post them .-
ANSWER:
A good engineering university. say MITif your considering a career you need to go cutting edge or you'll just be behind the times.
do some research into sliver cells, they were the latest thing a few years ago.
pretty soon we will be using algal farms to produce hydrogen gas to power cars. these are similar to solar panels, chemical and biological engineers (like myself) design these
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QUESTION:
Can any light reflecting object be a material for making solar panels? If not please tell me what can.?
I was thinking if I can make the cheapest solar panel ever!!! Sorry if I'm getting so ambitious. I just want to have a clean free electricity powered household.-
ANSWER:
Well theoretically they can, but you don't want reflective solar panels! That's just an effect of how they are currently made. The best solar panels keep in the most UV rays, they just haven't found a way to make a dark material that has the same photovoltaic effect (making light into energy). They have already made a certain type of fabric 100x darker than black. reflectivity is around 0.01% and there are plans to put it in solar panels as it with keep in the most UV rays which are what makes the energy, not the visible light. A bit of extra info - the black is made of tubes 1 atom in diameter. Amazing huh? But if you've got a good idea don't be afraid to discuss it with local universities even if you don't attend! They will love to help and give feedback. Keep up the thinking
. It could be you who solves our global dilemma!!
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QUESTION:
How are scientists making Solar Panels more efficient?
Can someone help me please? Would be much appreciated! -
ANSWER:
OK..if we're talking solar CELLS..ie devices that convert the energy of light directly into electricity..?
These devices are made of 'doped' semiconductor material formed in2 polar junctions p/n type silicon for example..electrical energy is released when the energy of an incoming photon=h*f >= the bandgap energy for the semiconductor material..its typically abt 1eV..or1.6E-19J..this means only visible light from the sun (about 50% of total insolation) is available for conversion..so your abs efficiency max is down to 50% right away. Also high energy blue/UV photons produce excess energy which is 'lost' by radiation or the photoelectrons produced being scattered by impurities.
About 10% of the solar energy is reflected at the surface and as the cell gets warmer due to operation it emits (black body) heat radiation. This reduces efficiency of conv single layer device to<30%.
Solutions: anti reflection coating (MgF2 say 1/4 wavelength thick for 500nm ave). Using gallium based semiconductors instead of silicon ones
multi layers of 'tuned' bandgap semiconductors, each tailored to a specific wavelength and transparent to the layer underneath..starting with blue at top>red light @ bottom.
incorpora8 'peltier effect' feedback cooling device to maintain cell below say 300K (27degC)
All these 'improvements' cost money in terms of production complexity and rising cost of materials like Gallium (instead of Silicon). So you have to factor in the cost per watt compared with coal, gas or nuclear
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QUESTION:
Tell me the guidelines for making solar panels?
Solar panels which is the one produces the power...I wanna the complete description about it...-
ANSWER:
I think it will be useful for you.. just try those things ..To begin, you will need a Multimeter which is able to measure DC fractions of voltage and your collection of solar cells, once you have this, position a light source near your solar cells as this will allow you to get a consistent measurement of voltage output of each of the solar cells.set your Multimeter to measure DC voltage and place the negative test lead on the side of the solar cell which shows negative voltage. Then place the positive test lead on the side f the solar cell which shows a positive voltage. Check to see what the maximum voltage output is and don’t move the solar cell around to try and get a higher reading. Next you need to separate your solar cells into groupings of .05 volt increments and this will allow you to take maximum advantage of solar cell output.the next step is to connect the solar cells with tinned interconnection wire and in order to achieve this you will need to take the spool of interconnection wire and cut it into 10.5 inch lengths.next every piece of the tinned interconnection wire should have solder put on it and you can do this by adding solder to 5.25 inches of the wire beginning at one end, then flip the wire over and add solder to the remainder of the wire beginning at the opposite end.now you must solder a length of the interconnection wire to each connection strip which is located on the front of each of the solar cells.
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