- Home
- About Solar Energy
- How Solar Energy Works
How Solar Energy Works
- By David Hawthorne
- Published 01/27/2008
- About Solar Energy
- Unrated
How Solar Works
Solar energy is a vast, super clean source of energy that when properly harnessed can rival the fossil fuel industry. The technology has gotten to a place where it is now also economical to use solar to begin replacing our currently polluting sources of energy. But how does it actually work?
The beginnings of solar energy date back to 1839, where a French scientist Edmund Becquerel found that specific types of materials reacted with sunlight by giving off an electric spark. This became known as the photoelectric effect and was the basis for the most primitive solar cells in the late 1800s. Later on in the 1950s, Bell Labs was on the cutting edge for many technologies and adopted solar as a possible source to power remote telephone installations. Due to the low conversion of sunlight to power ratio and high cost for development of these cells, their applications were limited. However, larger agencies such as NASA and world wide space programs quickly adopted solar energy as a great energy source for satellites and spaceships.
The most essential components of a Photovoltaic cell are two layers of semiconducting material which is most commonly composed of silicon crystals. Pure silicon is ineffective for conducting electricity, but by introducing very fine impurities into the silicon (a process called doping), the silicon becomes an excellent conductor for electric current. Most commonly, the bottom layer is 'doped' with boron and the top layer is 'doped' with phosphorus creating a positive charge on the bottom and negative charge on top.
Sunlight then enters the photovoltaic cell and the energy from the sun frees electrons in both the top and bottom layers. The opposing charged sides cause the electrons to want to move from the negative to positive, but it is prevented because of the electric field. There is an external circuit. There are extremely thin wires that are connect to the top of the negative layer that create the external circuit. The electrons that flow through the circuit the create electricity for the owner of the cell.
The beginnings of solar energy date back to 1839, where a French scientist Edmund Becquerel found that specific types of materials reacted with sunlight by giving off an electric spark. This became known as the photoelectric effect and was the basis for the most primitive solar cells in the late 1800s. Later on in the 1950s, Bell Labs was on the cutting edge for many technologies and adopted solar as a possible source to power remote telephone installations. Due to the low conversion of sunlight to power ratio and high cost for development of these cells, their applications were limited. However, larger agencies such as NASA and world wide space programs quickly adopted solar energy as a great energy source for satellites and spaceships.
The most essential components of a Photovoltaic cell are two layers of semiconducting material which is most commonly composed of silicon crystals. Pure silicon is ineffective for conducting electricity, but by introducing very fine impurities into the silicon (a process called doping), the silicon becomes an excellent conductor for electric current. Most commonly, the bottom layer is 'doped' with boron and the top layer is 'doped' with phosphorus creating a positive charge on the bottom and negative charge on top.
Sunlight then enters the photovoltaic cell and the energy from the sun frees electrons in both the top and bottom layers. The opposing charged sides cause the electrons to want to move from the negative to positive, but it is prevented because of the electric field. There is an external circuit. There are extremely thin wires that are connect to the top of the negative layer that create the external circuit. The electrons that flow through the circuit the create electricity for the owner of the cell.