Residential Solar Energy, Solar Cells Types, and the Growth of Silicon Sources (Part 7)

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In the following, we tell the story of silicon sourcing back to it's bust in the early 1990s, define the different types of solar cells, and highlight (briefly) the new solar technologies emerging today (thin film and nano-solar).

The following topics will be explained in varying levels of detail; how a solar cell converts sunlight energy via the use of different types of silicon, the use of silicon and where it comes from, and a little about the history of silicon sourcing over the past 18 years.

The Future Solar Panel and Home Solar Manufacturing

As the residential solar power industry has matured and showed a steady growth of about 40 percent a year, the silicon industry is now responding with new production and caches of raw materials. Many silicon refineries and new silicon sourcing companies are getting the funding and moving towards rapid production in the next dozen or so months. There are plans and announcements by several companies such as GE, BP, and others about launching new facilities that produce silicon at a fraction of the cost we may be experiencing today. This is all exciting news for home solar power enthusiasts and for those wishing to upgrade to residential solar generated electricity.

The silicon industry is or has been slow to increase overall manufacturing capabilities because of the large growth during the early 1990s that eventually when stale. The extreme growth expectations were hyped and many industry experts expected much expansion in the early 1990s. This just did not happen 18 years ago. Fortunately, we are now experience much more accepting market, social expectations of our movement to renewable technologies, and governmental support to make the switch to home solar power.

In the past, the solar silicon refining industry made solar panel manufacturers sign long-term contracts at extremely high prices to secure any silicon at all. For example, a solar manufacturing plant had to slow production to a trickle because of a lack of silicon. The economics have now changed since 2006 making massive silicon contracts viable at better prices.

Nano-Solar and Thin Film Solar Cells: It's the Future

We are now at the dawn of a home solar energy revolution. The solar power manufacturers invented and are beginning to manufacture new solar modules that do not use silicon at all. There are alternative materials using nano-technology that are and will continue to radically change the consumption and production of solar generated electricity.

Some of these materials are still experimental but tried and true solar technologies are now available on rental basis so homeowners can avoid the large upfront purchase expenses. Because there are now large sources of silicon, homeowners now have the choice to upgrade to solar on a large scale across many markets in the United States that were once thought too expensive to install residential solar systems.

Sourcing of Silicon for Home Solar Energy Systems

The material used to make most solar cells today is the abundant element called silicon. In simple terms, silicon is one of the most common elements on Earth. It really is no more than sand. It can be melted down, added to other materials, and manufactured into thousands of products. Availability of solar grade silicon has been one of the limiting factors in the solar module manufacturing industry for the past several years.

The story goes something like this. Solar grade silicon is produced in large scale, expensive to build processing facilities. "Well, isn't it just sand?" One might ask. Of course, sand is basically silicon, but with a lot of impurities. Solar grade silicon is highly refined silicon that is purified through gasification and then "doped" with precise impurities to create free electrons, which is explained in following articles.

There are basically 3 types of silicon going into current solar energy systems being installed today;

1. Silicon Crystals: A silicon atom has a positively charged nucleus that is surrounded by negatively charged electrons. The important factor in silicon is that it has 4 outer electrons. The 4 orbiting electrons can bond to the other electrons rotating around different elements. Each silicon atom connects with 4 more silicon atoms to construct a perfect pattern, a repeating crystalline structure.

2. Monocrystalline Silicon: The silicon is grown as large cylinders, which are sliced into wafers that become individual solar cells.

3. Polycrystalline Silicon: Liquid silicon is poured into thin containers and cooled.

Emerging Availability of Home Solar Energy System

Want to know how to rent a home solar electric system for your house? Well, it's pretty simple. You basically pay a flat monthly rental fee just like you do today for a satellite dish or some other equipment you rent. The rental fee is determined by the amount of energy you use, the solar resource in your area and the cost of energy in your region. A solar engineer will come to your home, look at your roof size, angle and shading to size the system for your location.

Going solar and using renewable, solar energy is getting simpler every day. The following article explained in some detail why the sourcing of silicon has slowed in the overall residential solar power market in the past. This is just not the case any longer and more options are emerging daily for the average homeowner to rethink solar power and renewable solar energies.

At Solargies, we plan to make the right Eco-friendly, green solutions available to the American homeowners. My role involves the leadership, communication, and the education related to the adoption solar energy system rentals. We provide homeowners the option to rent a solar electric system and avoid the huge, upfront investment in solar technology. Learn more at: => http://www.solargies.com/solar_panel_rentals.htm

Solar cells

A solar cell is a device that changes the light from the sun into electricity. More technical term for a solar cell is a photovoltaic cell.

The term "photo" derives from the Greek word for "light", and "voltaic" term comes from the word "volt" which means "electric force". A "cell" is a small container or receptacle containing electrodes to produce electricity.

For example, a photovoltaic cell is a container that creates electric force, through light.

While a solar cell can generate electricity from any source of light, its intended use is the collection of solar energy from the Sun.

-How does a solar cell

The solar cell works as follows:

The photons (which are particles of light in sunlight) reaches the solar cell surface and are absorbed a semiconductor such as Silicon.

These photons (bits of the Sun) knock loose electrons of atoms within the semiconductor. The photons then push electrons along, leaving a "divide" in the atom. Another electron is then extracted from an adjacent atom to fill the gaps. And if an electrical stream is generated.

The simplicity of this is that an atom has an extra electron, and the other atom is missing a. This is called "potential difference". Nature, wanting to remain balanced, tries to even things taking another electron of the atom of neighbour.

A solar panel is composed of a group of solar cells which are linked together to produce the quantity desired of electrical energy.

A group of interconnected solar cells can also be considered a "module". Thus the terms "solar panel" and "solar module" are synonymous with each other and essentially mean the same exact thing. "Solar panel" is the more common term, and "solar module" is the technical term.

Can use solar panels individually or can link several together to generate more electricity. When a group of solar panels is linked together, it is called a "solar". Solar panels are more more included in a solar panel power they produce.

Solar energy is a clean energy source that is practically unlimited. I say "virtually unlimited" because the sun itself will not last forever. But we won't have to worry about that for the next few billion years.

Given that solar energy is a clean energy source that for decades, one may ask why it is not used more. The answer lies partially in the cost of production of solar panels, and the efficiency of solar panels.

We are currently in the second generation of the technology of solar panel and verging on the third. Much has changed since the first generation. Has solar panels are a viable source of clean energy.

The first solar cells were relatively large and bulky compared to the current models of our country. Given the amount of energy and materials necessary to produce the and the amount of energy they produce effectively, it is more expensive to use solar energy to use fossil fuels. The only exception was in places where little or no fossil fuels were available in space.

With the second generation of solar cells, we have tried to tackle this problem. We have tried to improve the techniques of manufacturing to reduce costs, materials and energy needed for the production of solar cells.

Recently, major progress has been made in the production of solar cells, which have reduced production costs.

A contribution to the area has been the development of techniques in the coating of glass or ceramic materials of very thin layers of substances Semiconductor. This allowed to produce solar panels using only a fraction of semiconductor materials that required earlier. The production of solar panels with this second generation technology is referred to as "Thin Film technology".

Third generation solar energy technologies are currently the object of research and developed. The objective is to further improve the power of solar cells (while maintaining the minimum production costs) in which case thirty to sixty percent of the sunlight hitting the panels will be converted to electricity. (Currently, solar panels convert only twenty per cent).

But regardless of the technology of third solar generation, second generation solar cell is effective enough to make viable solar technology - and a host of new solar products hit the consumer market.

Solar-powered calculators have been around for some time now, we have all seen their. We even saw a few other new devices. But only in recent years have solar devices come into serious and practical use.

These last two years in particular have seen a virtual explosion of solar devices hitting the market. Solar lamps (I've often wandered what use they were), solar radios and recently, solar battery chargers.

Can now also find a wide range of solar chargers and portable panels, which are lightweight and easy to carry, yet able to provide a decent amount of power in the most remote. Solar chargers are becoming a standard part of emergency kits and wilderness survival kits.

This is the result of the evolution of the solar cell technology and the arrival of the solar age.

To find more information on solar energy and get a full understanding of solar energy devices, see facts about solar energy and Portable solar energy