‘Solar energy’ is energy derived from the sun. Our sun is an abundant source of energy that provides both heat and light. Many cultures throughout history, as well as a few tribes that still live now, have revered the sun. The sun was even worshipped as a God by the ancient Egyptians.
After all, it wasn’t a case of misplaced reverence; the sun is an endless and limitless source of energy, at least for several generations, and the advantages of harnessing its solar energy are enormous.
It’s free
Every morning with the dawn, the sun’s solar energy filters through our atmosphere, generating light and contributing in the emission of heat. This has been happening on for millions of years, but humans have only just discovered how to tap into this seemingly infinite source of energy.
The Greeks and Egyptians were famous in the past for concentrating the sun’s energy to heat whatever they needed.
It’s non-polluting
Solar energy is pure and pollution-free, unlike many other forms of energy accessible today, such as petroleum or organic fuels, which leave residues and frequently produce hazardous gases when used to generate power.
Extremely reliable
The sun has been burning for around 4.5 billion years and will continue to do so for another 4–5 billion years. That is unquestionably more than we will witness in our lifetimes, and unquestionably more than numerous generations will witness in the future. It appears every morning and then fades away in the evening, illuminating another portion of the globe.
The phrase “as sure as day” was coined for a reason: if the sun is shining brightly, you may harness its energy to either store it or use it in a different way, depending on where you are on the planet.
Limitless
We have no limits on how much energy we can take from the sun. According to reports, if adequately harnessed, the amount of energy generated by the sun every few minutes could power the entire United States of America for a year. If we could just harness the tremendous energy of the sun, we could solve all of the world’s energy concerns.
Have you ever wondered why no one else had considered this? How come we can’t manage to harness all that energy if there’s so much of it lying around? How does it look that so much of the sun’s energy is squandered because it goes unnoticed?
One of the reasons that this tremendous power storage is generally underused is that the sunlight that we do receive is dissipated so thinly throughout the world that even if we tried to harness it, it would not be able to contribute significantly enough.
To harness the sun’s power, we must be able to manipulate, focus, and store its energy. While this may appear to be a simple task, it is far more complex than it appears; we have only produced three marginally successful solar energy collection methods since then.
The Reflection Method – Mirrors / Parabola
The reflection method works by concentrating the sun’s rays into a single point using a single or a pair of mirrors, then harnessing the focused heat energy for human needs. A parabolic mirror, similar to a dish antenna, can capture and focus the sun’s beams on a single location.
The radiation method
This is how solar water heaters work. The sun heats the water, which is stored in painted black pipes jammed between two layers of glass.
Solar panels
A more recent invention, the’solar cell,’ is made up of treated silicon crystals that, when hit by the sun’s rays, knock electrons out of their orbits and create a void that must be filled by electrons from other silicon crystals, resulting in an electron imbalance and thus a flow of current that can be used right away or stored in a rechargeable battery.
What’s stopping us?
Despite the obvious benefits of solar power, there are just a handful solar power plants around the world. Unfortunately, with today’s technology, cost and reliability remain significant barriers to mainstream solar energy adoption.
Even the most efficient solar cells now available cannot generate enough power to be commercially viable without a huge surface area due to technological limitations. Furthermore, relying only on solar cells is not currently practical because the amount of electricity generated would be lowered on cloudy days, which would be disastrous for people who are completely reliant on that energy.
On the plus side, ongoing solar energy research and development is producing far more efficient solar cells that are a fraction of the size of current cells and provide significantly more power. For the time being, they are still prohibitively expensive, but the day will come when they are affordable and available to the common person.
