Use of sun rays as a renewable energy source seem to become highly popular. Human race uses it both on macro and micro scale. In macro scale we can see huge solar plants being build by governments or private consortiums. They are able to supply with electricity whole cities. On the micro scale we observe people using home energy solar systems growing in numbers. I’d like to share some interesting facts about solar energy in use in the post below. These will be not only advantages of it, but also minuses and curiosities. I’ll also explore on what the prediction for the future are.
We use energy of the sun for our advantage in few different ways. There are water-heating systems that provide warmth for swimming pools, houses, and other buildings. There are small batteries build into pocket devices like calculators, that can power them virtually infinitely. We use sun rays for drying clothes from ages. Solar –powered cars have already been build, and US scientists invented and build even plane that runs on sun energy. And of course the most important use of sun we’ll talk about here is solar panels that collect sun rays and transform them into electricity.
If you consider switching into using solar energy you should be aware of a sort of paradox that often occurs. It’s that these solutions can be really expensive at the beginning (especially if you buy ready systems, and not build them yourself). This is mainly because materials that are used in construction of these systems are relatively expensive at the moment. Yet on the other hand when the initial investment paid back, the energy is actually free – you’ve got a sort of free energy generator on your roof. What is also a big benefit, is that solar panels don’t need any maintenance – you just install them and forget about them. The only exception is in winter, in case snow covering your panels. You need to do some work and just wipe it our then (and that usually means getting to the roof first… which is not fun in winter). This investment that is necessary at the beginning is primary reason this technology hasn’t already spread across the world.
Another sort of paradox is about dependency. If you’ve got your own electricity source, you can really feel independent from energy consortiums. This is an important factor for many of those who buy solar panels. The dark side of that is that it makes you dependent on the weather. If there is power outage and everyone stays in blackout, it doesn’t touch you. But, if there is cloudy day sixth day in a row, it does affect you strongly. Not fun.
If we think about buying a solar-powered car, we should know they’re much slower then ‘traditional’ cars at the moment. This may change in quite short time, as technology development is nowadays really fast. And if we are remained that aircraft powered with the sun energy has already been built, we are sure that there is not a long way to go.
Tags: electricity, solar energy, solar pannels