PV Gap

Angel Said:

How is solar energy produced?

We Answered:

I hope I can give you a decent answer.

There are different forms of solar power: "solar thermal" and "solar photovoltaic".

Solar thermal involves the sun directly heating a fluid, say air or water, which is then used directly, i.e. to heat a house or hot water for a shower.

Solar photovoltaic, or "PV", as mentioned above, uses the sunlight itself. The light hits a PV panel made of semiconductors, which frees electrons which form a current. This is how we get electricity directly from sunlight. The brighter the light, the more power we get from this technology. It evens works when it's cloudy.

I talk about this more at my site, as http://www.howtopowertheworld.com/solar-…

I hope this helps

Michael

EDIT: I just realised I said pretty much the same thing on another of your questions! I didn't realise you were the same person. I think this is the better of the two, though :P

Laura Said:

Is there a way to tell how much solar energy will be produced based on location?

We Answered:

Insolation maps can be found here: http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsr…

These are based on actual measured historical data, so take into account local clouds and weather conditions.

Joe Said:

how is solar energy produced?

We Answered:

From the sun.

The extreme tempuratures and pressures at the core of the sun cause hydrogen to fuse into helium. The energy from the core takes about 1 million years to reach the surface, where the heat is radiated out into space. The sun has to covert 4,000 tons of matter into energy every second to maintain it's energy output.

In outer space, at the average distance from the sun to the earth, the solar light energy from the sun is about 2,500 watts per square meter.

Solar panels are only about 4% efficient. We can get only about 100 watts per square meter from solar panels in space, where the sun always shines.

On earth, depending where on earth we are, we get much less energy from solar panels.

If we use the solar heat to generate steam we can get even more efficiency.