Solar Power

Using solar power helps to keep the environment clean.

When equipment is used to obtain functional energy from sun light we call this energy solar power. The suns energy has been used by traditional technologies for hundreds of years. Today it is mostly used where other power supplies are not available like in space or in remote areas on the planet. Solar power can be used for heating and generating electricity to run house hold as well as some commercial appliances. More and more people are looking to use this eco friendly form of creating power, especially as other ways of making electrical power such as fossil fuel are becoming more expensive. There are a number of different uses for solar power and heating systems are one of them, also there are more commercial solar power systems being used as companies are looking for a cheaper more eco friendly way of creating electricity.

Solar Heating Systems:

Solar hot water systems make use of sunlight to heat up water and these systems are found in domestic appliances that heat water or for space heating and are basically composed of solar thermal collectors plus a storage tank.

There are three types of solar water heaters that make use of solar power and these are:

• Active systems that use pumps in order to circulate water or to heat transfer fluids.
  
• Passive systems that circulate water or heat transfer fluid through natural circulation and are known as thermosiphon systems.
  
• The batch system which uses a tank that is heated by sunlight.

Yet another use for solar power is in cooking where a solar box cooker captures the energy from the sun into an insulated box. These cookers are useful in for pasteurization as well as fruit canning and being used in many developing countries to reduce the reliance on wood as well as to keep the environment clean.

Solar lighting is another use of solar power where use of natural light to supply lighting is used to save energy and it offers physiological as well as psychological benefits.

There are also large scale uses for solar power as in the case of solar thermal electric power plants where solar thermal energy is used in powering a heat exchanger to high temperatures and the heat is then used in the production of electric power or for other industrial uses.

Also, solar power technologies may be classified as direct or indirect:

• Normally, direct solar power involves a single transformation of sunlight in order to get energy that can be used and in such cases sunlight may be used to hit photovoltaic cells to create electricity. It could also warm a thermal mass or it could strike a solar sail such as those found on spacecrafts. There are also many other means of obtaining direct solar power.
  
• Indirect solar power involves multiple conversion of sunlight to obtain useable energy forms.