Daniel Kingsley

Daniel Kingsley

Introduction A Solar Cell Solar Electricity in Buildings Solar Water Heating Passive Solar Heating Use of Solar Power in Other Countries Solar Furnaces Solar Powered Battery Solar Powered traffic lights, the GEN-SUN What is the future for Solar Energy? References

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Daniel Kingsley

Introduction
All life on earth depends on energy from the Sun. Solar Energy is the source of energy for photosynthesis. It provides the warmth necessary for plants and animals to survive. The heat from the Sun causes water on the Earths surface to evaporate and form clouds that eventually provide fresh rainwater. The Sun has provided nearly all the energy that we use. It makes our weather system work, so it produces the wind, rain and waves. All plants and trees absorb solar energy through photosynthesis while they are growing and it is that energy which is released when they are burned as fuels. The Fossil Fuels, Coal, Oil and Gas, were formed by plants. They rotted over millions of years, so this energy also came from the Sun! We are now using up the stored energy in the fossil fuels very quickly, so scientists have come up with a way to use Solar Energy directly. This is done through Solar Cells. Solar Electricity is the name given to producing electricity through Solar Cells. It is energy which is produced by the Sun. Solar Cells collect the Suns rays and turn them into electricity. So in other words a Solar Cell turns Sunlight into electricity. Thirty years ago most people in Britain used Solar Energy to dry their washing. They put their washing out on a line and left the Solar Energy from the Sun to dry it. These days most people just use a tumble dryer even if the Sun could do the job, because they think it is quicker and easier. Now Solar Cells are used in all sorts of different situations, like satellites in space to small calculators and children's toys. Satellites have large numbers of Solar Cells to provide power while they are in orbit. While on the other
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hand, calculators and childrens toys are really small so they only need one or two Solar Cells to make the object work. For many years the idea of using the sun to heat our homes has appealed to scientists. Unfortunately, at present, it costs roughly two or three times as much to generate electricity with solar panels as it does with fossil fuels such as coal and oil. As long as this is the case, most householders will prefer to stick with traditional forms of heating. However the world will eventually run out of fossil fuels, while there is already great concern over the damage to the environment. Consequently, the solar industry seems to have a bright future if it can reduce the unit cost for the power it provides.

A Solar Cell
A Solar Cell is an electronic device that converts the energy in light into electrical energy, electricity, through the process called Solar Electricity. Unlike batteries or fuel cells, Solar Cells do not use chemical reactions to produce electrical energy, and unlike electric generators, they do not have any moving parts. Solar Cells are also called Solar batteries and as the term Solar implies they are designed for converting sunlight into electrical energy. Solar Cells generate electricity when light falls on them. Their proper name is photovoltaic cells, from the Greek word photo meaning light and voltaic from Volta, an Italian who worked on explaining and developing electricity 200 years ago. A Solar Cell is really thin and is usually made of thin silicon. There are two layers of silicon. When light hits the Solar Cell, it frees electrons near the junction between the layers. The free electrons are attracted to the negativetype layer, leaving holes, near the junction. These holes are filled by electrons from the positive-type layer, and a electric current is made. Each cell produces electricity at 0.45V. The current it produces depends on its size. Most Solar Cells are about 10 cm across and produce a watt of
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electricity in bright sunshine. This is only a very small amount of power, so they are connected together in groups to provide enough for useful purposes. So Solar Cells use light to make them work. To make a Solar Cell you can start with a thin disc of almost pure silicon crystal. When the silicon crystal is being formed, a small amount of boron is added. The boron gives the crystal structure a unique characteristic. It actually has a positive charge, it is referred as P-type silicon and it forms the base of the Solar Cell. Next a very thin layer of silicon crystal is formed over the disc of P-type silicon. However, instead of adding boron, this time a small amount of phosphorous is added to the mixture. The phosphorous provides a negative charge and this is referred to as N-type silicon. The two halves of the Solar Cell, one Ptype silicon and the other N-type silicon, cancel each other out to produce a neutral cell. Solar Cells are now used in lots of products such as handheld calculators, electronic toys and portable radios. Solar Cells used in devices like these may use indoor artificial light as well as natural light from the Sun. This is so people can use the devices indoors and outdoors.

Solar Electricity in Buildings

Nearly every home in Britain uses Solar Energy for lighting their houses. This is done by using windows. These windows let light through to lighten up the room. It does not mean having lots of very big windows, it just means putting windows where light is needed. And usually having controls to turn lights off when they are not needed. The design of windows also needs to be taken into account: Which parts of the building are used during daylight hours

Daniel Kingsley

What are the rooms used for And how long they are used

You also needs to consider the fact that windows can loose heat, particularly if they are single-glazed. New types of windows are being designed that direct light to where it is most needed. Many commercial buildings use a lot of artificial light all year round. So some of these commercial buildings take a different approach to Solar Electricity. They will get a large number of Solar Cells and lay them on the roof like tiles. These Solar Cells will produce the electricity for the artificial lights, and all the other electricity used. This will reduce their electricity bill which over a long time will pay for the expensive Solar Cells on the roof. Solar Cells could also be used in sets all over south facing roofs on normal houses as well as commercial buildings. This is very convenient because they would not take up any extra space and they would be generating electricity in the areas where it is being used. If they are used on roofs they can actually form the roof surface, so it saves the cost of roof tiles. Solar Electricity can also be used to pump water. In a sunny, dry climate this sort of system would probably be used to pump water up from underground for irrigation or domestic use. The Solar Cells would operate the pump whenever there was enough Solar Energy and the water would be stored in a tank. Some systems for isolated places use Solar Cells combined with Wind Power. BT have designed a phone box where electricity is produced mainly by Solar Power in the summer, and mainly by Wind Power in the winter when there is only a limited amount of sunlight.

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Solar Water Heating

There are about 40,000 buildings in Britain with Solar Water Heating systems. These are not central heating systems to heat interior space, but are designed to provide hot water for washing. We need hot water for washing all year round, where as we need systems to heat interior space just when there is least Solar Energy around. It is possible to build Solar systems to heat your house all year round, but the system needs to be large to provide enough heat in the middle of winter and most of it is then not used in the summer. The amount of energy and cost of materials used to build such a system has to be counted against the amount of energy you get out of it. It is not usually thought to be worth the expense. On average in Britain with Solar Water Heating systems, can get 50% of their hot water from the Sun over the course of the year. This varies depending on how efficient your system is, how far north you are, what cold winds you get and whether there are any obstructions, like hills, trees or other houses which would reduce the amount of sunshine actually falling on your device. This 50% will usually be in the form of all the hot water on sunny days in the summer, a useful amount of warmed or hot water in the spring and autumn, and a little in the winter. Hot means hot enough in the summer to burn you in the shower if you do not add cold water. It is necessary to have a back-up system to heat the water when there is not enough sun, but even if the Solar System is only raising the temperature of the water in the tank from cold to warm, this is still very useful because it means you will use less gas or other fuel in the back-up system. Commercial systems are usually 60% efficient, but DIY systems are only 30% efficient. Solar Water Heating systems have a collector which is usually on the roof. Most Solar collectors have metal pipes containing water which heats up when the sun falls on them. The pipes are usually made of copper because that absorbs and conducts heat well and they are usually black to absorb heat. In order to keep the heat in, the collector is put into a box which is insulated behind and has glass or clear plastic on the front. This is a Solar Panel which you can occasionally recognise on the roofs of houses.

Daniel Kingsley

The water in the pipes usually has antifreeze added so that it will not freeze in the middle of winter and burst the pipes. When the water is hot it goes through a pipe to the houses hot water tank. The pipe goes through the hot tank so that it transfers its heat to the water inside it. This coil of pipe in the tank is also called a heat exchanger. When the Solar Panel is on the roof you need a small pump to move the hot water down from the Solar Panel to the tank. You also need some electronic controls so that it will only pump water when it is hot. Sometimes it is possible to put the Solar Panel lower down than the hot water tank. Then you can have a very simple system where the water will rise once it is hot and make its way to the tank without any help from a pump. But because the Solar Panel is low down it would receive less Solar Energy than if it was up on the roof. Another thing is that it would be easier for the panels to get damaged. Some water heating systems use the principle of a vacuum to stop heat from escaping and that makes them reach very high temperatures. Inside they have a heat pipe which contains a liquid with a low boiling point which evaporates quickly. This heat pipe runs down the centre of a wider glass tube which is evacuated. Heat travels by conduction, air circulating and radiation.
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In a vacuum, conduction and air circulating cannot happen so this cuts down heat loss enormously. There is no point in putting a Solar Panel on a north facing roof or where the Sun is unable to get to it. At least half of the houses in Britain have roofs suitable for Solar Water Heating. Systems for heating the water in swimming pools tend to be fairly simple. They only need to raise the temperature of the water by a few degrees, so they are usually a large area with a high rate of flow. The pool water itself is pumped through the Solar Collector so the system just consists of piping, the collector panels and the pump. The purpose is usually just to make the swimming pool a bit more comfortable.

Passive Solar Heating

Passive Solar building design means making it easy for Solar Energy to get into buildings to heat them up whenever the Sun falls on them. It is called passive because there are no moving parts and does not require much management. The Passive Solar design of buildings has so far proved to be the most effective and economically attractive UK option for benefiting directly from the Suns energy. Sunlight already contributes to the energy needs of most buildings, and Passive Solar design continues the principle, making use of the design and layout of a building to collect, store and distribute the Solar Energy received. Passive Solar technology involves building buildings so that the main glazed areas face within 30 either side of south, reducing glazing on northern facing walls and trying to avoid shadowing from trees or other buildings. Also combining these ideas with other energy efficiency features such as roof and wall insulation. The same ideas work both with individual buildings and to housing estates. Research into housing estate layout suggests that about 80% of the maximum energy savings that are possible using Passive Solar design can be achieved using three techniques. Two of them already mentioned, the position of houses, and minimising the amount of unwanted shadow from
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trees and other buildings. The third is making sure that houses are not to close together. This means having no more than 40 houses per hectare. Whether the buildings concerned include one off designs or a sizeable estate, it is important to recognise that direct gain Passive Solar designs can usually be built at little or no extra cost than with normal houses. More advanced applications of the technology incorporate features such as sunspaces or conservatories in the south-facing facades of houses. Research suggests that addition of unheated conservatories to either new or existing houses can make a considerable contribution to energy savings if associated with controlled ventilation. Heated conservatories, on the other hand, are believed to be highly inefficient from an energy point of view, although they do offer the advantage of providing additional living space.

Use of Solar Power in Other Countries

In rural areas providing a renewable water supply for both human use and agricultural needs is one of the main problems facing North African countries. Often water is extracted manually from deep wells that are a long way out of the village. This takes women and children a large part of every working day. Also this method of getting water cannot provide the needed irrigation requirements for agriculture in these countries. Solar Cells frequently offer the most cost effective solution for powering water pumps. North African countries, such as Morocco and Tunisia are characterised as having vast rural areas, with few villages connected to the national electricity grid. A Spanish manufacturer of Solar systems, has recently installed five Solar powered water pumps in villages in the Draa valley in Morocco, and a further five are expected to be installed in early in 2003.

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Since the early 80s Egypt has been following a fairly aggressive development plan, involving intense programmes of land reclamation, increased food production, industrial development and community development. To date the increase in electricity demand has been largely by domestic oil, largescale hydro and natural gas resources. However, these sources alone cannot sustain current growth rates into the 21st century. The government has therefore implemented an energy strategy based on energy conservation measures and renewable energy applications. Renewable energy offers immediate social and economic benefits to rural areas which are not economic to link to the electricity grid. Of the technologies available, Solar Cells are particularly well suited to rural applications as they offer a renewable source at very low maintenance costs. A German supplier of Solar products and systems, supplied and installed Solar Powered Home systems, street lights, water pumping stations, and Solar systems for a medical and new telecommunications centre, to a remote village between Cairo and Alexandria. Electricity demand in China is expected to grow dramatically over the next decade in order to keep pace with rapid economic growth and the governments rural electrification programme. In 1993, 10% of Chinas rural population had no access to electric power, which equated to roughly 120 million people. By 2010, the government aims to reduce this figure by half.

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Rural electrification is the most important market driver for renewable technologies in China. Wind and Solar Power, in particularly, frequently offer a cost effective and appropriate means of providing a reliable electricity supply for remote regions. In order to meet the demand, the government has positively encouraged the adoption of foreign technologies, especially where this is linked to a technology transfer programme and the development of local production capacity. A German company has set up two Solar Power Plants and two Wind Power Plants in the middle China. They have also set up small areas of Solar Power for individual houses to use in the rural areas.

Solar Furnaces
When higher temperatures are needed, a focusing collector is used. These devices reflect sunlight from a wide area and concentrate it onto a small blackened receiver, thereby considerably increasing the light's intensity in order to produce high temperatures. The arrays of carefully aligned mirrors used in these so-called solar furnaces can focus enough sunlight to heat a target to temperatures of 2,000 C (3,600 F) or more. This heat can be used to study the properties of materials at high temperatures, or it can be used to operate a boiler, which in turn generates steam for a steam-turbine-electricgenerator power plant. The solar furnace has become an important tool in hightemperature research. For producing steam, the movable mirrors are so arranged as to concentrate large amounts of solar radiation upon blackened pipes through which water is circulated and thereby heated. A devise in the Pyrenees has a huge parabolic mirror with a height of eight storeys, facing a field of flat mirrors which move to track the sun and reflect its energy onto the mirror, which focuses the energy onto a mirror. This furnace can produce temperatures of 3800C, but only in an area of 50 cm2

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Solar Powered Battery

Solar batteries produce electricity by a photoelectric conversion process. The source of electricity is a photosensitive semi conducting substance such as a silicon crystal to which impurities have been added. When the crystal is struck by light, electrons are dislodged from the surface of the crystal and migrate toward the opposite surface. There they are collected as a current of electricity. Solar batteries have very long lifetimes and are used chiefly in spacecraft as a source of electricity to operate the equipment aboard.

Solar powered traffic lights, the GEN-SUN

The GEN-SUN is a set of Solar Powered traffic lights which can be used when there are roadwork's and other road problems. The GEN-SUN needs no electricity, it just needs the Sun.

Because the GEN-SUN is battery powered, it is completely silent in operation. This means traffic lights can now be used close to environmentally sensitive areas such as hospitals, old peoples' homes and residential areas. In fact anywhere the constant noise of a diesel engine would be intrusive. This means the lights can operate overnight in residential areas.

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All diesel engines emit noxious fumes and potentially-harmful particles. These emissions add to the general level of air pollution. The toxic fumes may find their way into trenches where they are inhaled by workmen. The GEN-SUN produces no fumes.

What is the future for Solar Energy?

This house was built in Oxford in 1999, it uses Solar Energy in four different ways: Passive Solar space heating via the conservatory and the windows that are facing south Solar Water Heating from the Solar Panels on the roof Day lighting 4kW worth of Solar Cells on the roof which generate in a year about as much electricity as the house uses each year.

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However, at the moment the Solar Cells are expensive compared with other currently available ways of generating electricity. It cost 25,000 when it was built to install the Solar Cells and it would take many years to get that money back. Concentrating Solar Collectors could be used in very sunny areas to produce hydrogen from water. Hydrogen is a potentially useful fuel which produces only water when burned Solar Cars are also being designed, but they can only produce a certain amount of electricity because of the size of Solar Cell on the roof of the car. So at the moment Solar Cars only work in places like Australia and the USA.

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The numbers below estimate how much electricity is going to be produced by renewable sources of energy in the next few years. 3% 2000 10% 2010 20% 2020

These numbers show that renewable sources of energy are being used more and more over the years, so in about another century, about 90% of our electricity could be being generated by renewable sources of energy.

The diagram below shows where the 3% of electricity is coming from. It shows that wind turbines on and off shore produce the most electricity by along way. But it shows that photovoltaics (solar cells) produces quite a lot of electricity because it is fifth down on the table.

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References
Microsoft Encarta 95/97 The Way Things Work by David Macaulay The Dorling Kindersley Encyclopedia Comptons Interactive Encyclopedia 98 Encyclopedia Britannica CD 99 Childrens Britannica Educational Solar Energy Kit www.renewableenergy.com www.solarenergy.com www.solarhighways.com Information from Dulas A Pupils Guide to Solar Power written by Ann MacGarry

I also sent off to three companies: The Centre for Alternative Technology Education (CAT) Dulas limited Marlec Direct I decided to send of to CAT because I had visited previously and knew they had good information on Solar Energy. I ordered a book from them called A Pupils Guide to Solar Power which was really useful in my project. Dulas limited sent back to me a whole A4 envelope full of sheets about Solar Energy and Solar Power in other countries, which helped me quite a bit. Marlec Direct did not really send any useful information back to me, they just sent a price list for Solar Panels.

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