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Welcome back. Module 14 covers solar energy. This is the fourth of six modules on renewable energy.
In this module, we'll look at the engineering and uses of solar power. So let's get started.
OK, now let's talk about solar energy. There are three different approaches to solar in general. One is
solar thermal, where we use the solar energy for space and water heating. Another is through solar
photovoltaic, or PV, panels that do direct electrical production using the photons to make electrons. And
another is concentrated solar power, where we use the solar energy to create steam that then
generates electricity. So those are three main approaches for solar.
Solar thermal is pretty simple. It's used for space and water heating. If you leave a jug of water outside,
it gets hot after a while. That's the basic idea. But you can design your panels with optics and tubes and
glass to help concentrate the light to heat your water very effectively. This is just a radiant to thermal
conversion. You're taking radiant energy in the sunlight to make heat or heated water. And you could
also use it for passive heating of homes and greenhouses. This is not a new idea. It's been around for a
long time. It's simple, it's cost effective, it works. My house has solar thermal water heating panels on its
roof. They've been there for 35 years. They work very well. They're still cost-effective today. So this is a
pretty straightforward approach to using solar energy in a passive way.
Solar photovoltaic, or PV, panels are used for direct electrical production, converting radiant energy
photons to electrical energy electrons. It works with beams of light, although can also work with
scattered/reflected light. It is sensitive to cloud cover. As the clouds come over, production doesn't go to
zero, but it does go a lot lower. That's one of the drawbacks or downsides of solar PV.
Solar CSP, or concentrated solar power, is used to create steam-generated electricity. It's a system that
has several conversions. It takes radiant energy to thermal energy to make steam, which then is spun
through a steam turbine to make mechanical energy that then spins magnets to make electricity. So
there's more steps. It's a bigger system, a lot more to it. It requires direct normal radiation, often in arid
areas. So it doesn't work with a scattered/reflected light. It really needs straight beams of light to heat
the water. However, it usually has thermal storage built in. So a little bit of cloud cover is fine. It can
mitigate it because of the thermal storage built in.
Solar has many benefits. The fuel is free, it's renewable, it's inexhaustible, it matches well with peak
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demand. So we complained about the wind is out of alignment with our peak demand, but solar is in
pretty good alignment with peak demand. So that's good news.
And it has many drawbacks. Today, it's still relatively expensive. It is variable, but somewhat
predictable. We know, for example, it's not going to work at night.
It has a low-capacity factor. In Seattle, Washington with a fixed-tilt panel, you might get a 14% capacity
factor. In Phoenix, Arizona with 2-axis tracking, which means the panels move left to right and up and
down as the sun moves around in the seasons of the day, you might get a 33% capacity factor. So at
best, you're going to have solar generation about a third of the time. It has lower efficiency than thermal
power plants. So solar has something like a 10% to 20% efficiency, whereas the thermal power plants
are more like 30% to 40%. We are getting benchtop efficiency in solar PV panels in the lab, about 40%,
but that hasn't made it to market yet.
Much of the sun is where people aren't. We tend not to live in deserts. Although, in the United States,
we are moving south and west over time. As we move to the sunbelt, people are getting closer to where
the sun is. And solar is very land-intensive like winds, like hydro, like all the other forms of renewable
energy. The solar is light-intensive, but you get dual use with urban rooftops. Our rooftops are collecting
solar energy just to heat our buildings whether we want it or not. We could use that to generate
electricity.
Cold weather has mixed impacts on solar. So there's some bad news with this. Solar panels produce
much less power if there's not as much sun in the winter, which is one of the challenges. And panels
become covered with snow. So one new winter chore might be shoveling the driveway and clearing the
panels of snow. However, the panels also perform better, because there's extra power from sunlight
reflected off the nearby snow. And panel efficiency, like all electronics, is actually better in lower
temperatures. So you get some mixed trade-offs with how they respond to the weather.
In the United States, we have pretty abundant solar resources, better than Europe's, for example. In
particular, we have a lot of photons in the desert. So, southwest. But even in New Jersey, we have solar
resources that are about the same as what you might find in Spain. Germany is a world leader in solar
installations. Their solar radiance in Germany is about the same as Alaska. So this is a sign that if
Germany can use solar power effectively, probably the United States can as well. We have a lot of land
that's flat with a lot of photons. So this is an emerging opportunity in the United States.
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The good news with solar is the prices have dropped over time. These are prices for the PV panels and
cost per watt with a total installed system. In the 1990s, it's $9 or $10 per watt. That price has dropped
to about $3 or $4 a watt today for installed systems. The price has come down with time. They're still
dropping. They're not bottomed out yet. So this makes solar more cost-effective as time goes on.
In the future, solar PV will probably have better performance characteristics. The good news about
solar is the prices drop a ton. The performance goes up a ton. So this is something we're getting better
at as time moves on. A lot of the other fuels, especially the depletable fuels, their prices go up with time.
So with solar, the fuel is always free, and the technology gets better. And there are opportunities to
integrate solar into building materials. For example, onto roof shingles and windows and walls. So it
would be built into the building. They also can look at flexible panels for things like backpacks and
awnings and clothes and tents. And thinner layers of solar for things like paints and asphalts. Imagine
having all these roads with solar crystals generating electricity when they're out in the desert, unused
most the time. We can also move towards carbon-based solar systems instead of silicon-based
systems, which should drive the cost down even further. And then one opportunity that might be
looming is infrared solar panels that might work at night. Could be the wave of the future.
We design our solar panels to work on visible light, because there's greater energy density in the visible
light. That's also what we're used to. And the visible light is very powerful, but is only available during
the day. So if you look at the 24 hours of the day-- this is two days in a row shown on this chart-- the
radiation intensity of watts per square meter, how many watts of solar power we're getting per square
meter of land. During the morning, the solar power is off. And then the sun comes up. The panels turn
on. We get a lot of power through the course of the day, then it turns off again at night. We see this
pattern repeat.
Well, infrared radiation is given off by other sources around the heat sources and thermal masses on
Earth. And so we get infrared radiation through the course of the night with a bump during the day, but
it's relatively level. It's at a lower peak but a more uniform generation. So we might be able to harvest
infrared energy. It's much less energy-dense. It takes a very different kind of set of materials. It's harder
and more expensive to collect, but it has more uniform in its generation through the course of the day.
I encourage you to do the online exercises to reinforce what we learned in this module. I look forward to
seeing you at the next lecture.
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