How Solar Panels Work In Producing Electricity?

Solar energy technology is on the rise lately especially as the world goes towards green and renewable energy. This can be seen from the opening of solar farms on a wide scale pretty much everywhere across the globe. In fact, China is proud to have the biggest solar panel energy in the world.

Solar energy has gotten the attention of many people considering that it is a renewable energy source. But the cost of setting it all up is definitely not cheap especially if you want to install it at your home and you would definitely need to calculate the cost.

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But one crucial thing is how do solar panels work in order to produce electricity? How do the black layered panels change the sunlight into electrical energy for our daily usage?

The Effectiveness of Solar Panels

The first solar panel was built by Charles Fritts in 1880 and it has an efficiency of only 1 percent in converting electrical energy. The energy seems small enough to almost not be useable at all.

However, the solar panels that are commercially available today have an efficiency rate of up to 22.5 percent whereas the majority in the market is mostly around 12 to 16 percent in terms of converting sunlight to electrical energy.

This efficiency though can be increased to 46 percent in the case of a multi-junction photovoltaic cell(PV) that picks up energy from the various spectrum.

Solar Energy Mechanism

The way it works is the photon will collide with the electron and thus knocking it off the materials. In fact, solar panels consist of several small units called photovoltaic cell that is responsible for converting light energy into electrical energy.

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Normal solar panels are made from steel, glass, and many types of wirings to enable the current to flow from the silicon cell. Because solar panels generate direct current an inverter is needed to make sure that the electricity produced can be used in your home.

The solar energy produced is based on the photovoltaic effect where two different materials having strong relations to one another produce an electric voltage as light or other rays is shine upon it. In solar energy, the materials comprise semiconductors that allow the electron to flow in certain conditions.

The most common semiconductors used in the solar industry are made from silicon. The semiconductors can be of either two types: P and N. Every solar cell is layered with these semiconductors in which one layer will be the P-type while the other will be N (similar to batteries).

Type P semiconductor is more prone to taking the small positive charges whereas the N-type will take the negative charges. Commonly, the material of the semiconductors is full of first which makes it more exposed to donate or accept electrons since crystal-like silicone or germanium will not allow electrons to move freely from atom to atom.

It is the intersection of P-N where the free electrons will cross from one side to the other but not in the opposite direction. Every photon with sufficient energy will release one precise electron causing a hole to be formed. The electrical field will then cause the electron to migrate to the N part and the hole toward the P part.

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This happens when the electron's energy rises by using the energy from the light that enters. Since the electron is only allowed to flow in one direction from the N-type to the P-type, the photovoltaic effect will produce a direct current.

This current together with the voltaic cell will define the power(Watt) that will be produced by the solar cells.

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