Solar Power Panels

Water heating is in every house one of the biggest number on energy bills. This web is mostly about solar power panels that generate electricity, but it is very important not to forget about water heating solar panels. These panels are extremely cheap and can save you huge amount of money. Solar power panels are still something not cheap and something not very efficient and that is the reason why there are not solar power panels on every roof. Well, solar water heating panels are something cheap and very efficient and these panels are should be at every roof where it is possible.

Solar water heating systems for houses are something really great. Of course there are many other ways how to use heat from sun to generate electricity, but this article is about water heating systems for domestic use. If you want to heat water using sun you need some collector. This collector is often fastened to a roof or any other place where it is facing the sun. There are of course many different kinds of water heating collectors, but probably it will be some kinds of black pipes where water can be heated really fast and the water will be very hot. Another thing you need is of course some place where you will be storing that hot water. Of course this tank has to be big and has to be well isolated. Two circuit system is probably best, because in this system you can have anti freezing and anti corrosion stuff. That means you can use it for long time and also in places where is cold weather sometimes. Well there are also ways how to protect the ystem from freezing. The best systems are combined with other source of heat, so you will always have hot water even if there is not sunny weather, but if there is you have hot water for almost no price. Very interesting is that in many climates, solar heated water can provide almost 90% of house hot water energy. That is saving really huge amount of money. It is strange that in these days when electricity is so extremely expensive so many people still do not use solar water heating panels.

Today I don’t have for you anything about traditional solar power panels, but some really different and very revolutionary. One of the best things about solar energy is that it is developing so fast and here is another prove. The guys from Stanford university invented new process how to use not light or heat of the sun in one process, but both!

Maybe this title might seem strange to you, but it is something very real. Plastic really can be future of solar power panles. You might not know it, but silicone is definetely not the only material you can make solar power panles from. Another really great material for this is plastic. Even plastics are usually insulators, there are ways how to change their structure so they can be used as something different, something we can use while creating solar power panels. It is really strange, but some of things we use every day are not according to scientists so far from those plastics used when creating solar panels. You just need some guy who know what chemistry is all about and this guy changes the molecular structure and you can use it.
What are biggest advantages of plastic solar panels? well, as usual it is all about money. Plastic solar panels are much much cheaper then those we use today made of silicone, but that is not all. Unlike today solar power panles, these are flexible and can be used on many places where you cannot use those traditional solar panels today.
well, to be honest there are also many problems with these solar power panels made of plastic. what is really bad is that they are much less effective than those from silicone and these panles also have that problem that they are degrading much much faster than those from silicone. Well, lot of scientists are working on this stuff right now and every day and they makes significant steps forwards. It looks very promising and probably in next 15 years, plastic solar power panels will be just everywhere. I have to admit that I’m really looking forward to that moment.

According to latest study, solar power panles have much more benefits than you might think. One of these benefits is their ability of temperature isolation. You probably know that cooling houses in summer is something simply very energy consuming. In fact it is the main reason why in summer is high electricity consumption and of course it is very bad for environment. Well, the latest study by Jan KLeissl shows, that solar panels on the roof can help with this. If you have solar panels on your roof, not only you are generating cheap and green enrgy, but you are also helping cooling your house at day and heat it in night. Really amazing discovery.
If you have exposed roof and roof covered with solar panels, according to this study, building under the roof with solar panels will be 5°F cooler than the one without solar power panels. It might not seem much, but in really hot days, every single degree means a lot! How this works?
It is very simple, the solar panels acts as shades and these panels are reflecting the heat that is coming from the sun. It works best when there is a gap between solar power panels and your roof so the wind can get the hot air out. I think that these are really great news for all fans of solar energy.

Solar power panles are of course very closely connected with photovoltaic effect, without this effect solar power panels would never work. It was guy from France called Becquerel who discoverd this effect and it was in 1839. That is really very long time ago. I always thought that this photovoltaic effect is not older then 50 or 60 years, but as you can see it was first recognized in 1839. It is really interesting that it took lot of time until first solar cell. This first solar cell created some Charles Fritts and I’m absolutely sure that he had no idea how important this idea will one day be. Well the first solar cell as we know today was invented in 1946. Interesting is that they created this cell when they have been working on something absolutely different, it was in time when they tried to make first transistor.

Well these cells were still something good for laboraty, but definetely not good for practical use. This changed famous Bell Laboratories who developed their cell 1954 and it was very effective compared with the old models. In those times solar cells was very important for one area. It was absolutely useless for normal use, because it was extremely expensive, well it was absolutely great for use in space exploration, because it works great in space. The first solar cells were used on satellite Vanguard I. From those times there was steady, but slow development of this technology until now, where more and more companies and scientists are working on solar power panels. The goal is to make them more efficient, cheaper and of course also more “green”.