Solar Systems

What is Solar Power?

Solar energy is radiated from the sun continuously. Each year approximately 1,540 billion gW/h (1,540 peta kWh/year) of the sun's energy reaches earth providing enough energy to meet 15,000 times the worlds total annual energy needs.

The sun delivers enough energy to the earth in one hour to satisfy the entire global energy needs for one year.

The challenge has always been about capturing the sun's energy and converting it into a useable energy source such as electricity.

We can use Photovoltaic cells to capture a small part of the sun's energy that falls on a solar panel.  For those scientifically minded, the process of generating electricity within the solar cells works like this:- 

Photons (or sunlight) bombard the solar cells and enrich the valence electrons (4 electrons in the outer shell of the atomic nucleus) with energy.  As these electrons are struck by the photons the electrons are knocked out of the silicon atom and leave a positive atom behind. The free electrons move creating a current flow due to the front and back surfaces of the modules having different polarities. Thus creating Direct Current (DC) electricity.

DC electricity is usually converted into Alternating Current (AC) to be used within the household or fed into the electricity grid.  A solar inverter is used to convert DC into AC electricity before it can be used by the household or fed into the power grid. An inverter is a highly complex electronic apparatus.