PV Gap

Sean Said:

can solar panels power a house 24 hours a day when only have 12hours of sun light?

We Answered:

Sun light creates lots of energy, it would be enough for 24 hours. I wish we could use these in Britain, but we hardly have any sun :D

Brian Said:

solar panels sun power?

We Answered:

15 watts isn't enough to run a TV. You could barely power a compact fluorescent light bulb (uses about 10 watts), or charge a bunch of small devices like a cell phone and ipod (use about 0.5 watts a pop)

What kind of battery?

Jimmy Said:

Could we launch massive solar panels into space to power the Sun and make it last longer?

We Answered:

HAHAHAAA!!!! ROFL that's awesome! Thanks for making me laugh!!

:D

Neil Said:

What if anything has been done to channel light power other than solar panels?

We Answered:

As your question notes, there are other ways to derive power from solar energy other than just using solar panels.

One such way that has grown rapidly in recent years, is solar thermal generation. Solar-thermal uses mirrors to collect sunlight and concentrate it at point to generate intense heat. This heat is used -- just as in traditional fossil fuel plants -- to boil a fluid, thereby creating steam pressure, which drives a turbine that generates electricity.

Solar thermal has some advantages over traditional solar panels. It's collectors (i.e. mirrors) are cheaper to manufacture than solar panels and last longer. Also, it uses a generating technology (steam turbines) that is a mature, well-understood technology. Solar thermal is not as downwardly scalable as solar panels -- you're not going to put a small solar thermal system on your roof -- but it is a better solution than solar panels for power plant scale applications.

Here's a good article on the subject.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renew…

Actually, since you seem to be more interested in home applications, here is some good information on how solar hot water heaters work.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your…

I have no direct experience with a system like this, but I've lived in countries where they use water tanks on roofs as solar hot water heaters, and they work quite well.

Julio Said:

Optimize the distance of the solar panel on satellite from Sun to give maximum power output.?

We Answered:

That's cool (so to speak) as a problem, but it's hard to move the satellite toward or away from the sun if it is in orbit around a planet.

If it is free of any planet (a artificial satellite of the Sun) then that's a whole additional thing.

You've got the right idea. Do you have equations for:
1. Electrical output vs. sunlight intensity
2. Electrical output vs. temperature
3. Temperature vs sunlight intensity
4. Sunlight intensity vs distance from Sun

Depending on the construction of the solar panel, you could arrange to have radiation cooling from the back of the panel to keep its temperature down. Even in earth orbit, this temperature vs. power budget tradeoff is an important engineering factor in solar panel and spacecraft design.

Good luck with the math.