Solar Energy has been around fro nearly 200 years. And in most recent years great technological improvements have helped us further our studies of this limitless energy which the sun provides us. Though there are some struggles in perfecting it, research and developers are working hard to perfect the solar cell to absorb as much as the sun's energy for commercial and scientific purposes.
History
Pioneers of Solar Energy
A drawing depicting Mouchout's design.
Auguste Mouchout[1] : In the 1860’s Mouchout was a French mathematician who started working on solar energy because he was worried about the countries dependency on coal. He worked on small scale engines and brought them to Napoleon III who was intrigued by it. Napoleon gave Mouchout the funds to build and master his machine. Through much hard work he was able to generate a half a horsepower. After this, he was given more funds but eventually France pulled all funding and deemed his work a practical failure.
Willoughby Smith[2][3] : 13 years after Mouchout, Willoughby Smith tried to produce solar cells through a selenium. However, his plans were foiled when his results didn’t produce what they had expected.
William Adams[4] : After the discovery of selenium, William Adams, created a rack of many mirrors to capture the rays created by the sun. Adams connected platinum electrodes to selenium which helped produce more energy than Smith’s experiments. They discovered that you could generate energy without a lot of moving parts.
Model of Charles Tellier Solar Energy device.
Charles Tellier[5] : In 1885 Charles connected flat solar collectors to his roof, a lot like what we have today, and was able to pump water throughout his house. He then improved his design by placing glass on the top and insulating the bottom. He brought this up to the English government, promising that this would be up and running faster than the Mouchout device for the French. However, they would not take the idea and Tellier returned to his old work of refrigeration.
Charles Fritts[6] : In 1883 the American inventor developed the first solar cell by placing selenium on a thin layer of gold. This helped produce more energy then current technology by 1%. Even with the increase it didn’t allow for any practical use.
Aubrey Eneas[7] : In the late 1890’s Aubrey wanted to take solar energy and redesign it. After countless attempts he finally settled on a design that spanned 33 feet in diameter and contained 1,788 mirrors. His machine was able to boil water and then pump 1,300 gallons of water per minute to water the arid lands of California. Eneas' solar generator was the first commercialized product to have success.
Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson[8] : In 1954 these three were able to create the very first silicon solar cell by diffusing Boron into silicon through a process called doping. This produced up to 6% more power but still wasn’t able to move to commercialize products. However, it was a huge step forward in the right direction.
Solar Energy Today
Solar energy is becoming more popular as time moves on. Solar panels are used to generate electricity for homes, flashlights, and phone chargers[9] . We are also seeing great advancements with solar energy and space exploration with solar panels on satellites and propelling probes around the solar system.
Possibilities of Solar Energy
The possibilities could be endless for solar energy. Some of the possibilities could result in solar cars with solar panel roads propelling the cars, solar balloons for scientific purposes and houses running entirely on solar power[10] . NASA is in the works of making a solar generated engine called Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP)[11] .
Public Initiatives
Multiple policy initiatives exist to incentivize the transition to renewable energy sources such as solar. One of these the California Solar Initiative, will have allocated over 2 billion dollars in subsidies to facilitate solar energy installations by the end of 2016. The policy provides tax credits to entities that transition to solar energy generation, and net-metering systems have been mandated to allow for such systems to be integrated into public utility grids. The initiative has already contributed in the installation of sites aggregating to over 4.5 GW in solar energy collection.[12] Additionally, in December of 2015, the United States Federal government extended the investment tax credit for solar through 2024. Projects will receive 30% if they are started before the end of 2019. Projects that begin development in 2020 and 2021 will receive 26% and 22% respectively.
Environmental Concerns with Solar Cells
The Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy[13] has the SunShot Initiative which supports research and development projects aimed at increasing the efficiency and lifetime, as well as evaluating new materials, for hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells. According to Energy.gov[14] , one of the main environmental concerns for the current architecture is related to lead-based perovskite absorbers. Research is being conducted toward eliminating the toxicity of the lead-based absorbers or replacing the lead with current or future materials that do not negatively impact the environment. Another type of structure that is showing great promise is tandem device architectures which use a combination of perovskite solar cells and multi-crystalline silicon cells. These take advantage of wide-gap high open voltage properties of perovskite solar cells. The final challenge to widespread commercial deployment and use for clean energy production lies in scale-up and optimization of the deposition processes for duplicatable perovskite solar cell performance. The SunShot levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) target of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour, which perovskite solar cells can easily achieve once commercial scale-up can be implemented.
Science Behind Solar Energy
The sun is the ultimate source of energy we have on the earth. It is limitless to its capabilities and uses for humankind. As the wavelengths of sunlight comes down to earth it produces heat. About 70% of the energy released by the sun is captured through the clouds, water and land masses. The other 30% goes back into the atmosphere. In about 20 days the planet could save up enough energy from that 70% to replace all other types of energy. For solar panels when the sunlight hits the cells of the panels gives the electrons the energy to jump and move on both the top and bottom layers. As the electrons are wanting to move around and create electricity but cannot. So a junction is made between two semi-conductors which allows the electrons to move freely creating electricity, which can be stored in batteries for use even after dark.[15]
Solar Energy
Summary
Solar Energy has been around fro nearly 200 years. And in most recent years great technological improvements have helped us further our studies of this limitless energy which the sun provides us. Though there are some struggles in perfecting it, research and developers are working hard to perfect the solar cell to absorb as much as the sun's energy for commercial and scientific purposes.History
Auguste Mouchout[1] : In the 1860’s Mouchout was a French mathematician who started working on solar energy because he was worried about the countries dependency on coal. He worked on small scale engines and brought them to Napoleon III who was intrigued by it. Napoleon gave Mouchout the funds to build and master his machine. Through much hard work he was able to generate a half a horsepower. After this, he was given more funds but eventually France pulled all funding and deemed his work a practical failure.
Willoughby Smith[2] [3] : 13 years after Mouchout, Willoughby Smith tried to produce solar cells through a selenium. However, his plans were foiled when his results didn’t produce what they had expected.
William Adams[4] : After the discovery of selenium, William Adams, created a rack of many mirrors to capture the rays created by the sun. Adams connected platinum electrodes to selenium which helped produce more energy than Smith’s experiments. They discovered that you could generate energy without a lot of moving parts.
Charles Tellier[5] : In 1885 Charles connected flat solar collectors to his roof, a lot like what we have today, and was able to pump water throughout his house. He then improved his design by placing glass on the top and insulating the bottom. He brought this up to the English government, promising that this would be up and running faster than the Mouchout device for the French. However, they would not take the idea and Tellier returned to his old work of refrigeration.
Charles Fritts[6] : In 1883 the American inventor developed the first solar cell by placing selenium on a thin layer of gold. This helped produce more energy then current technology by 1%. Even with the increase it didn’t allow
for any practical use.
Aubrey Eneas[7] : In the late 1890’s Aubrey wanted to take solar energy and redesign it. After countless attempts he finally settled on a design that spanned 33 feet in diameter and contained 1,788 mirrors. His machine was able to boil water and then pump 1,300 gallons of water per minute to water the arid lands of California. Eneas' solar generator was the first commercialized product to have success.
Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson[8] : In 1954 these three were able to create the very first silicon solar cell by diffusing Boron into silicon through a process called doping. This produced up to 6% more power but still wasn’t able to move to commercialize products. However, it was a huge step forward in the right direction.
- Solar Energy Today
Solar energy is becoming more popular as time moves on. Solar panels are used to generate electricity for homes, flashlights, and phone chargers[9] . We are also seeing great advancements with solar energy and space exploration with solar panels on satellites and propelling probes around the solar system.- Possibilities of Solar Energy
The possibilities could be endless for solar energy. Some of the possibilities could result in solar cars with solar panel roads propelling the cars, solar balloons for scientific purposes and houses running entirely on solar power[10] . NASA is in the works of making a solar generated engine called Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP)[11] .Public Initiatives
Multiple policy initiatives exist to incentivize the transition to renewable energy sources such as solar. One of these the California Solar Initiative, will have allocated over 2 billion dollars in subsidies to facilitate solar energy installations by the end of 2016. The policy provides tax credits to entities that transition to solar energy generation, and net-metering systems have been mandated to allow for such systems to be integrated into public utility grids. The initiative has already contributed in the installation of sites aggregating to over 4.5 GW in solar energy collection.[12] Additionally, in December of 2015, the United States Federal government extended the investment tax credit for solar through 2024. Projects will receive 30% if they are started before the end of 2019. Projects that begin development in 2020 and 2021 will receive 26% and 22% respectively.Environmental Concerns with Solar Cells
The Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy[13] has the SunShot Initiative which supports research and development projects aimed at increasing the efficiency and lifetime, as well as evaluating new materials, for hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells.According to Energy.gov[14] , one of the main environmental concerns for the current architecture is related to lead-based perovskite absorbers. Research is being conducted toward eliminating the toxicity of the lead-based absorbers or replacing the lead with current or future materials that do not negatively impact the environment.
Another type of structure that is showing great promise is tandem device architectures which use a combination of perovskite solar cells and multi-crystalline silicon cells. These take advantage of wide-gap high open voltage properties of perovskite solar cells.
The final challenge to widespread commercial deployment and use for clean energy production lies in scale-up and optimization of the deposition processes for duplicatable perovskite solar cell performance. The SunShot levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) target of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour, which perovskite solar cells can easily achieve once commercial scale-up can be implemented.
Science Behind Solar Energy
The sun is the ultimate source of energy we have on the earth. It is limitless to its capabilities and uses for humankind. As the wavelengths of sunlight comes down to earth it produces heat. About 70% of the energy released by the sun is captured through the clouds, water and land masses. The other 30% goes back into the atmosphere. In about 20 days the planet could save up enough energy from that 70% to replace all other types of energy. For solar panels when the sunlight hits the cells of the panels gives the electrons the energy to jump and move on both the top and bottom layers. As the electrons are wanting to move around and create electricity but cannot. So a junction is made between two semi-conductors which allows the electrons to move freely creating electricity, which can be stored in batteries for use even after dark.[15]http://solarenergy.com/info-history
http://exploringgreentechnology.com/solar-energy/history-of-solar-energy/
http://solarenergy.com/info-history
http://solarenergy.com/info-history
https://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/21/history-of-solar/
http://solarenergy.com/info-history
https://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/21/history-of-solar/
http://nocamels.com/2015/12/solar-powered-hydrogen-generation-israel/
https://www.greenmountainenergy.com/2014/06/solar-energy-past-present-future/
https://www.californiasolarstatistics.ca.gov
http://www.energy.gov/eere/sunshot/hybrid-organic-inorganic-halide-perovskite-solar-cells
http://www.energy.gov/eere/sunshot/hybrid-organic-inorganic-halide-perovskite-solar-cells
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/041.htm#121