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The Function of a Typical Solar Panel

I recently took a car trip from Los Angeles up the coast to Portland, Oregon and was amazed to see how many farms and ranches are now using solar energy to for power. I'm happy to say that I'm seeing more installation of solar panels on the roofs of both businesses and homes in California. The firehouse down the street from where I live has them on the roof as well. We can only hope for the future of the following generations of people that this form of energy becomes the norm. The function of a typical solar panel is not really complicated and yet they perform well at producing high levels of electricity. There are individual installations and there are large solar installations such as those used by industry and utility companies that produce electricity with solar energy as their source.

The function of a typical solar panel and how it works to produce electricity starts with the light and heat from the sun. These groups of panels are called solar arrays and start with either groups of solar panels or one solar panel, and can be called photovoltaic panels, solar energy panels or even solar farms in the case of very large installations. They all have one thing in common in that they start with the solar cell. The sunlight shines on the solar cell which is made of a semiconductor that attracts protons and turns them into electricity by creating a current. These semiconductors are placed between two plates. One carries a negative charge and one carries a positive charge. It is here that the direct current begins. The solar effect comes from the radiant energy of the sun and the protons make the electrons move.

In most of the solar installations that you see, silicon is the semiconductor of choice. In institutions of higher learning and laboratories all over the world, cheaper and more efficient solar cells are being researched with the hopes that the cost of solar based electricity will challenge the costs of fossil fuel based electricity. In Germany recently, huge progress has been made where solar cells have reached efficiency levels of forty four percent which means that huge amounts of the solar spectrum of light can be used.

All of the solar cells are connected to make a direct current which is then sent to an inverter which then turns the direct current into usable current which is alternating current. The function of a typical solar panel system is wired to the appliances inside the structure so that electricity functions from a solar basis as it would from utility companies. The electricity is then tied into the electric meter where the communication begins between the amount of electricity produced and the amount that is unused. This is the basis of most solar installations and the function of a typical solar panel that we see on rooftops. The need is increasing and the growth of the use of solar energy is growing as well which is good news for the case of fighting air pollution and global warming.

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