Solar Power: How it Works

With more people looking for useful ways to create sustainability at home, solar power: how it works is a question that's popping up everywhere.

Solar power: how it works is far too large a question to answer in one short article so here we’ll just look at the basics and provide follow-up resources.

Most places in the world have the capacity to harness solar power and use it to their advantage. Some places can better use it, while other places can use solar power very well during certain times of the year and less at other times. However, with good solid planning, almost anyone can use solar power for an untold amount of applications.

• To heat and cool your home and water supply
• To cook food
• To grow plants
• To generate electricity
• To purify water
• To power a vehicle
• To awaken a household without the use of an alarm clock
• To light your home naturally
• To create chemical reactions (not recommend for at-home use, but helpful if you’re a scientist)

Most importantly you can use solar power to conserve the earth's resources. In other words, when you harness solar power it’s often taking the place of you needing to dip into a resource that may be non-renewable or harder to renew. Using solar power to decrease global warming is another significant earth friendly benefit of solar power.

Solar power is not one simple way of harnessing the sun for good uses. There are various ways in which solar power is both classified and used. Below are some common solar power definitions and ways that solar power can be used.

Direct solar power refers to any instance in which sunlight directly hits an item and creates power. It’s easier to understand if we think about it in terms of a photovoltaic (PV) cell. A PV cell is a conductor of sorts. They were first created in the 1950s and consisted of thin layers of pure silicon and various other technical elements. What was discovered by Bell Laboratories in the 1950s was that when sunlight hit one of these PV cells, a tiny amount of power was produced. So, if you put a bunch of these cells together and the sun hits them – much more power is created; thus creating lots of nice direct solar power. Now there are many different direct solar systems available for different applications.

Indirect solar power is when sunlight is part of, but not the direct cause of power. A wind turbine actually uses indirect solar power. It does use sunlight to run, but the sunlight technically mixes (in a sense) with the atmosphere and creates a correct weather pattern that will result in the wind turbine doing its job.

When someone says, solar power: how it works; active or passively, it’s a good bet that this person is talking about building a home. Most of the time (not 100 percent, but mostly), passive and active solar power is used in building terminology.

Passive Solar:

You don’t need many supplies to harness passive solar power. Here’s what you need:

• The sun
• The rotating earth

If you live somewhere where you’ve got these supplies, then you’re good to go – and if not, you have other issues we should discuss. The major part of successful passive solar power is planning. You have got to know what you’re doing or passive solar just plain won’t work. Here are some things to think about when building a structure if you’re going to use passive solar successfully.

• Choose the perfect location with good solar exposures and low wind. This can sometimes be achieved by changing the landscape as well, such as growing vegetation to cut wind.
• Window placement.
• Home overhangs; a basic issue of keeping certain parts of your home protected from excess sun. Solar power heats very quickly and it’s easy to overheat your home.
• Proper insulation that maximizes heat retention in winter and keeps the home cool in the summer.

Orientation: this is maybe the single most important issue in passive solar structure design. The best explanation I can give is that if you are not planning a solar home and all you do is make sure your home is oriented towards the south (in the U.S.) your energy bills will go down by 25 plus percent. Solar energy is just that good.

Active Solar:

Just by the name, you can tell that active solar power in more involved that passive. You can heat and cool your home with passive power, but remember the PV cells from above; you’re going to need those and other systems to create power that will allow you to have long hot showers, surf the web, and brightly light your home at night.

A well planned active solar system can supply your home with all the electricity you need and more. Well thought out solar power planning can allow you to be off-grid; or free from the electric company.

For more on the amazing uses of solar power and how it can work for you, your business, and the planet, visit one of the following websites:

• The Solar Electric Power Association
• Solar Home
• And a great site about one of the largest residential photovoltaic systems built in California, Solar Warrior

Hopefully, these sites will inspire you to think about solar in new ways. Solar power is clean, renewable and highly efficient. It’s so efficient in fact that The Real Goods Solar Living Source Book states this amazing fact:

“Using the technology available today we could equal the entire electric production of the United States with photovoltaic power plants using about 12,000 sq. miles, or less than 12% of the state of Nevada” Amazing!

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