Last updated on April 26th, 2024 at 01:11 pm
Solar energy (sunlight) is a renewable energy source that can be used to generate solar power in the form of usable electricity using solar panels.
Below is a summary of the pros and cons of solar energy.
Solar energy is continually replenished and is present everywhere in unlimited supplies.
You do not need to pay for solar energy.
There is no burning thus no emission of fumes is involved when solar energy is utilised to generate electricity.
Solar power is used in heater for showers, swimming pool/spa, cooking and landscape lighting; off-grid power facilities; irrigation pumps; road signs and remote gates; navigational systems, buoys; DC (direct current) and electrical motors.
Installation of solar systems in properties can boost their value with increasing demand for more eco-friendly homes by buyers. This is in view of occurring natural disasters like California wildfires and extreme melting of ice.
Active government support is also one important advantage. The Californian government gave out tax incentives and credits to citizens supporting the installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and PV cells on their rooftops through the Million Roof Initiative.
Via solar panels, there have been uses of solar energy in a variety of operations as mentioned below.
Via thousands of solar panels, harnessed solar energy is converted to electricity to power homes. Solar power plants are green alternatives to the conventional coal-fired power plants that release harmful emissions.
Solar power plants harness sunlight in two main modes: solar PV and solar thermal power plants.
Due to government incentives and enhancing of property value, there have been increasing number of homeowners installing solar panels on their rooftops. Among the US states, California is the leader in the amount of solar-generated electricity.[4]
Besides US, solar panels have also been used in other countries like Singapore to generate electricity for powering the lifts, corridor and staircase lightings for their housing estates. A total of about 3.6 mega-watt-peak (MWp) of solar PV systems have been installed in different precincts under the Greenprint framework.
Solar panels have been used for powering satellites, space crafts, cars and boats. A good example is the Sun21 team from Spain that sailed across the Atlantic from Sevilla to the Caribbean island of Martinique. This feat allowed them to set a Guinness Book Record in becoming the world's first transatlantic solar-powered journey.
This idea was mooted in an effort to reduce the load carried by soldiers for the generation of electricity in the field that involves lugging heavy generators and fuel. It was put into practice by the US[1] and Australian Army.[6]
There are some disadvantages in utilising solar energy.
A lot of money has to be pumped in the initial start-up of a solar power plant. This involves the manufacture and setting up of enough solar panels to generate enough power for the plant.
Solar power cannot be generated at night and storms and is also reduced during cloudy days. One way to overcome this will be to use a larger capacity battery to store the generated power during day time or when there is sunshine.
Solar panels with an area that are suitable for usage for generating electricity have an efficiency of 20.4%[5].
There have been technological advances made in the development of PV cells to reduce their production costs and improve their capability in harnessing solar energy.
To reduce their production costs, one way will be the replacement of cadmium chloride to magnesium chloride in thin film solar cells.[2] Cadmium chloride is coated on thin-film solar cells to increase the efficiency of converting sunlight to energy.
During the manufacturing process, the coating process is carried out by chemists donned in protective gear and in fume hoods. The toxic dissolved cadmium waste has to be disposed carefully. This switch to magnesium chloride will also make it safer for production of PC cells.
Aside from utilising visible light, there is a new PV cell capable of using the ultraviolet and infrared region of the light spectrum to generate electricity.[3] This increases the efficiency of a single-junction PV cell, with no requirement for a multi-junction cell, and reduces the production costs of the individual PV cell.
Highly transparent solar cells that can also function as windows allow the generation of electricity by homes and buildings are available based on the research carried out by teams in University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) and more recently University Michigan.
The team from University Michigan achieved 8.1% efficiency and 43.3% transparency using solar cells made from a carbon-based design rather than conventional silicon. Hence paving the way for these solar cells to function as smart windows for new or replacements for existing buildings.[7][8]
Another way will be to use concentrators (Fresnel lenses) to gather and focus sunlight into a small area with PV cells to generate electricity.[9] Solar thermal plants have utilised such concentrators that carries out automatic tracking of the sun's position to maximise the amount of collected sunlight. This technology is called concentrated photovoltaic technology (CPV). It will also reduce installation costs as lower number of PV cells will be required.
