Solar Energy

Solar energy is quite simply the energy produced directly by the sun and collected elsewhere,
normally the Earth. The sun creates its energy through a thermonuclear process that converts about
650,000,000 tons of hydrogen to helium every second. The sun’s energy comes from fusion
reactions in its core. These reactions have been “burning” for 4.5 billion years and are expected to
continue for another 6.5 billion years. The total power radiated out into space by the sun is about
3.86 × 1026 W. Since the sun is approximately 1.5 × 1011m from the earth, and because the earth
is about 6.3 × 106m in radius, it intercepts only 0.000000045% of this power. This still amounts
to a massive 1.75 × 1017 W. The process creates heat and electromagnetic radiation. The heat
remains in the sun and is instrumental in maintaining the thermonuclear reaction. The radiation
(including visible, infrared, and ultraviolet) streams out into space in all directions. Most of this
radiation is in the visible and infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, with less than 1%
emitted in the radio, UV and X-ray spectral bands. Only a very small fraction of the total radiation
produced reaches the Earth. The radiation that does reach the Earth is the indirect source of nearly
every type of energy used today. The exceptions are geothermal energy, and nuclear fission and
fusion. Even fossil fuels owe their origins to the sun; they were once living plants and animals
dependent on the sun.

Due to the nature of solar energy, two components are required to have a functional solar that
collects the radiation that falls on it and converts a fraction of it to other forms of energy (either
electricity and heat or heat alone). The storage unit is required because of the non-constant nature
of solar energy; at certain times, only a very small amount of radiation will be received. At night
or during heavy cloud cover, for example, the amount of energy produced energy generator. These
two components are a collector and a storage unit. The collector simply by collector will be quite
small. The storage unit can hold the excess energy produced during the periods of maximum
productivity, and release it when the productivity drops. In practice, a backup power supply is
usually added, too, for situations when the amount of energy required is greater than both what is
being produced and what is stored in the container.
Solar energy is one of the purest and clean forms of energy we receive on earth, without any
environmental degradation. Thanks to the never-ending solar radiations we receive, it is
responsible for all the life processes taking place on earth. If we tap into this energy systematically,
this can be the largest source of energy, and even a tenth of energy from solar rays on earth can
solve the entire energy crisis. In India, however, the potential of energy from solar rays is about
750GW. If this energy is utilized, we won’t need any other source of energy in our country. There
are many ways converting solar energy to electricity, but most widely used ones are by using
photo-voltaic cells (also called solar cells) and concentrated solar power, where solar rays are
focused and the concentrated power generates heat to run the solar plant. Solar energy has gained
a lot of significance in recent decade, due to shortage of non-renewable sources of energy. As on
30 June 2015, the installed grid connected solar power capacity is 4,060.65 MW, and India expects
to install an additional 10,000 MW by 2017 and a total of 100,000 MW by 2022.
India being the first country in the world to setup the ministry of non-conventional energy
resources, Gujarat has been a leader in solar power generation and contributes 2/3rd of the 900
MW of photovoltaic in the country. There have been a few initiatives from the government, such
as the Indian Solar Loan Programme, which has focused on financing solar home power systems,
to increase the use of solar energy for domestic use. It may also include lighting, irrigation or water
heaters. Notably, Bangalore city has the largest deployment of solar water heaters in India. Solar
industry has Investment 2015 also highlights a record $119 billion in new investment. Gujarat and
Rajasthan alone account to more than 88% of total solar energy produced in India.
As an entrepreneur, the potential for innovation is endless in this sector, as the whole world is
moving in a direction to minimize the use of renewable energy and opting for solar devices. Right
from automobiles to domestic appliances and handheld devices, solar is going to dominate the
market in our near future. Moreover, as the efficiency of solar cells is less than 10%, there is huge
scope for innovators to develop energy efficient solar devices and make it cost-effective to address
the demands of the large population in our country.
The basic research in solar energy is being carried in universities and educational and research
institutions, public sector institution, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited and Central Electronic
Limited are carrying out a co-ordinated programme of research in solar energy.
The applications of solar energy are:
(1) Heating and cooling of residential building
(2) Solar water heating
(3) Solar drying of agricultural and animal products.
(4) Solar distillation on a small community scale.
(5) Salt production by evaporation of seawater or inland brines.
(6) Solar cookers.
(7) Solar engines for water pumping.
(8) Food refrigeration.
(9) Bio conversion and wind energy, which are indirect source of solar energy
(10) Solar furnaces.
(11) Solar electric power generation by –
(i) Solar pond
ii) Steam generators heated by rotating reflectors (heliostat mirrors), or by tower concept.
(iii) Relectors with lenses and pipes for fluid circulation (cylindrical parabolic reflectors)
12) Solar photovoltaic cells, which can be used for conversion of solar energy directly in to
electricity or for water pumping in rural agricultural purposes. Photo-voltaic (PV) solar energy
conversion is one of the most attractive non-conventional energy sources of proven reliability from
micro watts to mega watts level. The PV system perform direct conversion of Sunlight to
electricity, provide non polluting conversion process, not depending on fossil or nuclear fuels.
Overview of Photo-Voltaic System :
The most useful way of harnessing solar energy is by directly converting into electricity by means of
solar photo voltaic cells, when Sunshine is incident on solar cells, they generate DC electricity without
the involvement of any mechanical generators i.e. there is direct conversion of solar radiation into
electricity. In this system stage of conversion into thermodynamic form is absent. The Photovoltaic
effect is defined as the generation of electromotive forces as a result of the absorption of ionizing
radiation. Energy conversion devices, which are useful to convert Sun, light to electricity by use of the
photovoltaic effect. Photovoltaic system employ energy conversion devices called solar cells.
Advantages / Disadvantages of Photovoltaic System :
 Advantages :
 Director room temperature conversion of light to electricity through simple solid state devices.
 Absence of moving parts, Ability to function unattended for long periods as evidence in space
program.
 Power levels voltage/current can be achieved by more integration.
 Maintenance cost is low, as they are easy to operate.
 They do create pollution, they have a effective life.
  They are highly reliable.
 They consume no fuel to operate, as the Sun’s energy is free.
 Rapid response in output to input radiation.
 Wider power handling capabilities. And Easy to fabricate.
 Amenable to on site installation.
 They can be used with or without sun tracking making possible wide range of applications
possibilities.
 It is an environmentally clean source of energy.
 Free and available in adequate quantities in almost all parts of the world where people live.
 Non-availability of conventional source of energy.
 Disadvantages :
 The solar radian flux availability is a low value 1 KW/m2 for technological utilization.
 Large collecting area required and Availability varies with time.
 In many applications, energy storage is required because of insolation at night.
 The relatively poor conversion efficiency and cost is more.

Advantage and disadvantage of solar energy

 One of the greatest advantages of solar energy, of course, is that there is no carbon dioxide,
methane or other emissions that warm the atmosphere. However, some of those emissions
necessarily accompany manufacturing, transporting and installation of solar panels.
 Some of the materials used to make solar cells to convert the solar energy into electricity, such
as the more exotic composite materials may run out over time, but the basic elements used to
make solar cells (e.g., silicon and aluminum) are all abundant and recyclable.
 Solar energy is a clean alternative to fossil fuels and nuclear power. It’s silent. Solar power can
be captured anywhere without creating noise pollution that might otherwise up set neighbors and
wildlife. Thus, no danger of damaging our already damaged environment further and you can be
part of the Green initiative, lower your carbon footprint, and save our planet from harmful
greenhouse gases.
 Solar energy is free. Sure, there is an initial capital cost to install a system that will convert the
electromagnetic energy and photons sent out by the sun into electricity, but once you have made
 the investment and the sun keeps shining you will be producing electricity. No one will be
sending you a bill for sunshine.
 While a solar photovoltaic panel is still relatively expensive, it will pay for itself over time from
the sale of electricity or from saving you money by reducing the amount of electricity you'll have
to buy. The time it takes you to recover your net investment (investment less incentives) is known
as the payback period. Generally, the payback period for solar installations is getting shorter and
shorter. Solar hot water panels have been greatly improved in recent years and, with lower cost,
payback times for domestic systems can not be as short as five years. In some geographical areas
producing electricity from the sun already costs less per kilowatt hour of electricity produced
than producing it from fossil fuels. As coal, gas, oil and nuclear energy fuel prices continue to
raise solar energy will become even more cost effective. There is a start up cost, but then it starts
paying for itself. Once you break even, everything after that is profit. Compare this to paying a
monthly bill and getting no return on investment.
 Solar energy has several major advantages when compared with other sources. The resource is
distributed, though unequally, to every location on the globe. The resource is abundant, to the
extent that many countries have far more than they need to supply their energy needs from solar
alone. It is effectively renewable on a human timescale, since the sun is expected to maintain
similar production of its essential radiation at about the current rate for billions of years before
eventually cooling to become a red giant.
 Possibly, untraded solar energy already dominates the global energy supply as it grows our
forests and crops that provide basic energy services to a large fraction of the world’s population,
warms our passive solar buildings, evaporates seawater to produce our industrial salt supply and
even dries our crops, clothes and fuels outdoors.
 Collection and conversion to various useful energy forms is generally quiet and clean, with little
or no local pollution from operation, including greenhouse gas pollution. Solar energy generally
offers very low risk to public or operator safety and therefore, the location of solar energy plants
can be flexible. Its use at large industrial scales is believed to be environmentally benign.
 Where it is accessible through relatively clear skies, sunlight may be concentrated up to a
theoretical maximum of 46,300 times. This corresponds to catching all the light leaving a unit
area of the solar surface and generating its optical image on the surface of a terrestrial absorber,
which would require a vast elliptical reflector with the sun and the earth at the foci. Note that
 higher concentration of sunlight permits lower exergy destruction in conversion stages so it
allows more efficient conversion of solar energy to useful forms such as mechanical work,
electricity, chemical fuels or high-temperature process heat. Conversion of non- or low-
concentrated solar radiation has less strict requirements for dynamic alignment of the collectors
towards the sun, as compared with concentrating solar applications, and such types of
photovoltaic or solar thermal receivers are appropriate for urban installation. Many forms of
solar energy conversion are small in scale and modular, so there are low barriers to incremental
introduction.
 On the other hand, solar energy also has disadvantages. It is much more diffuse than, for
example, fossil or nuclear fuels, so large surface areas are required to collect large quantities of
energy. At any given location on earth, the intensity and spectrum of sunlight varies in both
predictable and less predictable ways, introducing intermittency of supply. The tilt of the earth’s
axis means seasonal changes in solar radiation availability, with changes in the extent of daylight
and the apparent elevation of the sun.
 Another disadvantage is geographic specificity. Economic introduction of solar energy to
existing energy distribution systems needs to conform to existing infrastructure that was built
around competing energy sources. For example, the optimal location of large extra-urban solar
power stations requires access to existing electricity grid infrastructure with capacity to accept
the solar supply, collocated with available, un-conflicted and low cost land and high solar
radiation.