Alternative Energy Solar

  

With energy sources depleting at a rate faster than they are being built, it is only wise that we use the abundant energy available for free, like solar energy. Apart from the easy availability, solar energy helps control environmental pollution. Most of use shy away from installing solar power for houses, thinking them to be expensive and cumbersome. You will, however, be surprised to know how easy it is to employ these power solutions. Moreover, these will help cut down your power bills. Finally, you will be delighted to know that you are doing your bit to save power for the future generations.

There are three types of solar power for houses

Solar cooker: A solar cooker is a cooking utensil that uses absolutely no fuel for cooking. You can cook food for up to five people in the small box. If you are thinking that using a solar cooker will reduce your chances of spreading up a varied platter on the dining table, you will be surprsed to know that you can not only boil food items in the cooker but also roast and bake. The only limitation with the solar cooker is the time it takes to cook. However, given the free source of energy it uses, this is a great option for cutting down those sky rocketing bills and saving some power.

A Solar home lighting system converts solar energy into electrical energy for your home. This is done via cells that are charged with solar energy. So, in the night, if you wonder how the lights are on in the house, it is because of the solar energy stored in the solar cells. You can install the solar home lighting system in your house and not worry about the electricity bills anymore.

A solar heating system installed in your home helps cutting down your electricity bill along with saving the world’s quickly exhausting power. If you are worried that a solar heating system will turn your sweet home into a gadget house or that it will be an expensive investment, your concerns are misplaced. Companies providing solar power solutions for homes make it a point to install aesthetically pleasing heating systems in your house. As per as expenditure is concerned, investing in a solar heating system is wise because you get a return on your investment within 3-4 years, giving you absolutely free service after that. For more articles like this, bookmark www.AlternativeEnergySolar.info

By: Gun guru

Alternative Energy Solar presents the following article about how solar energy works and how and why it will continue to grow in importance as a renewable energy resource.  Just driving around my Southern California community points out the obvious:  almost every other home has residential solar panels.  I can only imagine the possibilities when we begin to truly harness the energy of the sun and continue to wean ourselves from costly and environmentally damaging fossil fuel energy sources.

Our planet receives enough raw energy in the form of sunlight in sixty minutes to illuminate all of the worlds lights for a full year. Unfortunately, a very small part of it can be harnessed so most of the population still gets most of its energy from power plants that burn fossil fuels. Fortunately for our environment, we have recently seen an increasing trend in the demand for solar energy. This is partly due to the fact that solar panels are becoming cheaper as technology advances.

At the equator, the Sun provides approximately 1000 watts of energy per square meter on the earths surface. That means that 1 square meter of each panel can generate approximately 100 GW of raw power per year. That amount of power is enough to illuminate more than 50,000 houses. The entire area that would need to be covered by solar panels to power the entire world for a year would be the equivalent to one percent of the entire space of the Sahara Desert. The amount of power solar panels can generate on a given day depends on a few variables like smog, cloudy days, low temperatures and humidity.

Solar panel farms are a lot like other normal power plants with the only big difference being that most power plants get their energy from fossil fuels. And when conventional plants burn fossil fuels, they generate the by products which are contributing to global warming. Solar panel farms or solar heat plants (or CSP plants) absorb the rays of the sun to generate electrical energy.

This process of energy conversion in solar heat plants rather simple. The panels absorb the rays of the sun, which then shines on the power receiver. In this receiver, the energy is converted into steam from the suns rays. The steam is taken to tanks where it will be used to spin turbines and generate electricity. The process is clean because it requires no fossil fuels to be burned. It is safe for the environment and doesn’t contribute to global warming like conventional power plants.

If more solar panel farms are implemented, the demand for oil will be reduced sharply. Today, there are many households that use solar panels for energy and more people are adding panels every day. When this demand for solar energy and other alternatives goes up, fewer people will use gas and fossil fuels, and the prices for these will surely drop as well.

If you use solar energy, you may actually be able to use "negative energy". Because every house is connected to the city’s power system, the extra energy that your panels produce will go back into the grid and can be consumed by other households. This will result in you being sent a check by the electric company for the energy you put back in. Even if you panels are small, you will see a huge reduction in your bill. These solar panels, aside from being good for the environment, are good for your pocket!

Even though the initial investment into your solar panel system is a bit expensive, the panels will undoubtedly pay for themselves in the long run. Not only do you save money and perhaps even make some with your panels, you help the environment by reducing greenhouse gases and emissions. These systems are so durable they have been known to last years. PV cells are supposed to stay good anywhere from twenty-five to forty years. Most suppliers of solar panels have a standard twenty-five year warranty.

Finally, solar panels take minimal maintenance and they can be placed basically anywhere that gets a good amount of sunlight all year.

Author: Russell Hancock

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Russell_Hancock

Alternative Energy Solar and the following article help to answer "What is Solar Energy"?  Solar energy is an exciting way to help us become less dependent upon fossil fuels and focused on renewable energy sources. 

Solar energy is the energy that is produced by our sun. During the fusion process that the sun undergoes during its lifetime, it emits radiation. The fusion process produces many different wavelengths of radiation and sub-atomic particles.

Collecting and converting usable energy from solar radiation can be accomplished by using many different forms of technology and includes various direct and indirect methods of harnessing the solar energy.

There are basically two ways to use this solar radiation, by collecting the heat from the light, and photovoltaic conversion of the light.

There are many different methods of collecting the heat and converting it to electricity, and many ways of converting the light as well. I’ll keep it simple here and give just a few examples.

One of the simplest ways that people use solar heat energy is by using greenhouses. A greenhouse is built so that it can best collect the sunlight and heat that it receives from the sun. Using special glass or plastics, the greenhouse and everything within it retains the heat energy from the sun. This heat is trapped inside the greenhouse by the roof and walls allowing plants to grow in an otherwise too cold climate.

By combining various technologies and the use of alternative power sources such as electricity from the grid, a controlled growing climate can be maintained to optimize specialty and agricultural crop growth.

A large greenhouse could make use of a solar updraft tower to generate most or all of the additional electricity it may require to keep the climate controlled.

A solar updraft tower is a simple use of the excess heat generated by light heat that the greenhouse receives. Heated air rises. Heated air is channeled from along the ceilings of the greenhouse and directed into a tower. The hot air rises and the turbine blades are pushed by the hot air rushing past them to generate electricity. Storing any excess power in batteries for the night when there is no sun can also keep the use of grid power to a minimum.

Expanding on the collection of heat from the sun, there are power plants in the hot sunny desert areas that collect the heat from the sun and convert the heat to electricity.

Some of these solar energy plants make use of curved, highly reflective and focused surfaces to optimize the collection of heat from the sunlight. They focus the light onto a central tube that is filled with synthetic oil that gets very hot. This hot oil is then piped into a boiler filled with water that is flashed into steam from the heat of the oil. The steam produced is then used to turn turbines that produce electricity. This is a highly effective way to convert solar energy into usable power.

Another way to collect the energy from the sun is through direct photovoltaic conversion. What this means is that the light is converted into electricity by using special materials called photodiodes that are made into cells. The photodiodes emit electrons when the photons from the sunlight hits them. By using arrays of the special cells and electrically connecting them together, enough power is produced by the transduction process to make it a worthwhile alternative energy.

As more and more people demand the use of free solar energy, governments as well as businesses are subsidizing researchers, and these combined efforts are meeting this demand by coming up with materials that can produce more and more energy from a given amount of sunlight. Solar electricity produced by arrays of solar panels is now almost as cost effective as using petroleum, coal, and nuclear generated power.

I hope I have explained this reasonably well to you the reader, and am only expressing what I know on a personal level. I make no claims to be an authority figure, nor anything other than an interested party.

Thanks for reading!

Author: Richard Hund

My hobbies are science, science fiction, particle physics, astronomy, and so much more. I have recently devoted more time to a couple of websites that I have had registered since last August including: http://www.scifipie.com and http://www.forums.scifipie.com

I would love visitors and contributors to my sites! Your ideas on helping us all to go green are also appreciated. Save the planet! I hope to contribute more articles soon!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_Hund