Solar Power Energy Harness The Power Of The Sun
Saturday, November 1st, 2008As we seek ways to reduce our dependency on fossil fuel, with new technological advances and greater environmental awareness, solar power plants and systems will hopefully become commonplace throughout the world. Accumulating the power of the sun and converting it to solar power energy we can use for our every day needs is achieved through several methods.
The two most popular methods for generating solar power energy are the concentrating solar power system and the photovoltaic system (PV). The PV system cam convert light from the sun directly into electricity, and is most often used for industrial and residential applications. The Concentrating Solar Power (CSP system) uses the sun’s heat in lieu of fossil fuels to generate heat that fuels a traditional power plant. The CSP system could potentially provide sufficient electricity for a whole city. There are three methods by which a Concentrating Solar Power System generates a large amount of energy: the power tower system, the dish engine system, and the parabolic-trough system.
The price of solar panels may vary tremendously based on which type of installation you are looking for. If your building is located in a relatively remote and industrial area, you may able to use the typical roof mounted panels with a boxy shape. For a more discrete or nicer looking dual purpose installation, you might have the structure built with solar cells capable of producing solar power energy that are built directly into the roofing, window, and awning materials.
Solar panels are not limited to roof-mounting. Using ground and pole mounting systems for solar panels is another option. The ground and pole mounts offer more design flexibility and can be an advantage if your structure is shaded for part of the day. It is also possible to equip solar panels with mechanisms that will follow the path of the sun during the course of the day, which will provide the most exposure to the sun for producing solar power energy.
A parabolic-trough system uses long mirrors to magnify the sun’s heat. Oil, pumped through pipes embedded in the mirrors, absorbs this heat and carries it away from the mirrors. The heated oil is then used to heat up water which creates steam that is harnessed to power a generator.
Dish-engine systems utilize a reflective parabolic type dish to focus the heat from the sun to heat fluid much like the parabolic-trough system except this fluid expands when heated which make it move large pistons that power an electrical generator for the production of solar power energy.
Solar power energy created by power tower systems use a huge array of mirrors to focus the heat from the sun onto a tower mounted receiver which heats molten salt flowing through the receiver. The heat from the molten salt is then used to heat water to create steam to power a generator.