Solar Power
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Our oil mines and energy resources are depleting. It takes about thousands of years for the production of coal and mines. Time to choose renewable energy sources for all our activities will not be so far. The major source of renewable energy is the solar power. What makes it more convenient is because of its greater availability in the day time and the supply will be almost constant throughout the day. Also tapping solar power is simpler than any other resources.
PDevices used for solar energy tapping are solar panels. You can see it in your watch and calculators. Those small cells have capacity to produce some mill volts of energy. But when we move onto large scale production the area of the cell will be more. Solar cells are called photovoltaic cells. It got this name because when photon or light of suitable energy falls on it, it produces voltage. Large solar panels are made by arranging small cells in a series manner.
Solar cell is constructed from semiconductor materials. These materials will emit electrons when light of suitable energy falls on it. This electrons flow between terminals and thus voltage is developed between the terminals of the cell. Silicon is the common material used for constructing solar cell. The outer electrons present in silicon can be easily removed by hitting a photon.
Earlier solar cells were found application only in satellites. But today we are using it in solar powered heaters, street lamps, watches and calculators. Now some vehicles are using solar power to charge the batteries and use that power to drive that vehicle. But the limitations of solar cell make it less efficient when compared to fuel powered vehicles. In future this situation will change and we all will be adopting solar cells for our power generation activities.
The difficulty in implementing solar panel is the availability of the panel and also the cost for initial setup is high. But to provide solar cells at a minimum cost and making it more popular is the only way to overcome this energy crisis.
In some developed countries they are changing their houses self powered by the solar cells. In future this will spread into more nations and will reach India also.