Solar Energy

Solar energy is responsible for life on earth. Without the sun’s radiation, our planet would be a barren rock with freezing temperatures. But in this day and age, solar energy has become something more immediate than that, if such a thing is possible. Photovoltaic is the word we’re talking about, which comes from the roots photo (Latin for light) and volt (Latin for power). As might be expected from such roots, it is the ability of a medium to translate sunlight into electricity.

Photovoltaic power, or solar energy as some call it, is unique in today’s power landscape. It is the only large scale source of power that doesn’t revolve around a turbine. Coal and nuclear power plants use their fuel to create steam to spin a turbine. Hydroelectric power plants use the potential energy created by elevated water to spin their turbines. Even wind power uses the moving air in the world to spin their turbines. But photovoltaic power skips the turbine entirely.

That’s both the unique gift of solar energy, and the greatest challenge involved in harnessing it. The ability of materials to create electricity from light was discovered about the same time as the dynamo was invented; however the dynamo (ancestor to the modern turbine) had a better efficiency rate than the mere 1% that the first light sensitive crystals exhibited. Today the efficiency of solar panels has increased several magnitudes to the range of 35%, and new technologies promise both higher efficiency ratings, and lower production costs for photovoltaic arrays. Solar power is at long last achieving the long sought competitive ability that will help make it a part of the power landscape for years to come.