Only after watching the movie “Race the Sun” i came to know about Solar Energy. It was a story about low- income and under achieving Hawaiian students encouraged by their teacher to join the Solar Car race. In the movie, a car shaped like a cockroach and covered with solar panels used the sun’s rays as an alternative energy source to run the car.
Solar energy is the light and the heat from the sun. Solar energy is not only a free source of energy, but its also unlimited in supply. There are no harmful causes such as air and water pollution by using solar energy. But there is still some impacts on the environment although indirect.
The efficiency of solar power for homes can greatly be increased with the use of daylight systems. It is used to provide interior illumination replacing the artificial lighting. The different types of Daylight system include Sawtooth roofs, Light Shelfs, Skylights and Light Tubes. Daylight systems when they are properly implemented can reduce lighting-related energy consumption by 25 percent.
Solar energy can also be developed into solar thermal technologies which can be used for water heating, space heating, space cooling and process heat generation. Solar energy can also be used to distil water and make saline or brackish water potable or drinkable.
Sun’s light can be converted into electricity by a method known as Photovoltaics or PV. PV has been mainly used to power small and medium-sized things like a calculator powered by a single solar cell. There are homes powered by photovoltaics. Using solar energy for water and space heating is the most widely use application of solar energy. While ventilation and solar air heating is also growing in popularity.
With all the benefits of using solar energy, there is still a downside of the solar energy efficiency. It does not work during night time. Although the cost of setting up a solar plant runs high, but the benefits are much more than the initial setting up costs.
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