Interesting Facts About Solar Energy

It seems everyone is looking for interesting facts about solar energy. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that this free source may be the cure to the world’s insatiable energy appetite. So not surprisingly solar has become the latest buzz around the planet. With more and more people and governments looking to find alternate sources of energy, solar energy is coming of the age. Everyone knows that the Earth system gets power from the sun and many forms of power have their source in the sun, but it took ages for us to really understand this and reap the benefits of solar energy directly.

We can thank solar cells for this. Ok let me put my accountant’s hat on. We can now trap the sun energy onto these cells and harness the power to run our appliances. After your initial investment you only need sunlight (free) as an energy source to get power for your home energy needs. Now I’ll put on my Greenpeace hat. Here’s another interesting fact about solar energy. Did you know it only takes one ton of sand to provide the needed silicon used to make solar power panels which equals the 500,000 tons of coal needed to burn for an equal power output. Back to my accountant’s hat- the use of solar power has been found to cut up to fifty percent of water bills where an electric heater has been replaced by a solar one.

Want some more interesting facts about solar energy? Did you know that experiments with photovoltaic gave Albert Einstein Nobel Peace Prize in 1921? These photovoltaic (PV) panels even generate power when there are clouds. It’s the sun’s rays that are converted into power and not the heat from the sun (unless we’re talking solar hot water heating). In a PV cell it is the light that reacts with silicon on the panel and generates an electrical charge that gives power to run the appliances. The electrical current generated from solar panels is direct current (DC) and needs to be converted to alternate current (AC) to be used in for home appliances. There’s a device called an inverter that performs this function.

Adding to the list of interesting facts on solar energy is that the energy the sun provides in one day is far more than what the entire human civilization would use in a year.

The solar panels are highly durable and can last for about twenty-five years. Most of the panels come with a warranty of twenty-five years or so. These solar panels have a great feature in that they are modular making it easy to add more panels if needed. So you can install a smaller system and can later add to the panels to increase the power capacity of your home solar system.

Other interesting facts about solar energy are that its power, magnified by reflectors, can melt steel or rocks! One of the nicest things about solar (besides being free) is that it makes itself available to the remotest of locations. It’s pretty fascinating that locations far off the power grid will be able to have electricity run their day-to-day home appliances.