Suprising Solar Facts

The solar energy industry is rapidly changing as it continues to grow globally. Renewables energy is electromagnetic energy (solar radiation) transferred by the sun that is the basis of all life.

Introduction

It amounts to about 420 trillion kilowatt-hours, and is several thousand times greater than all the energy used by all the people. Clean energy is used by capturing the sun's heat or light.

It’s a clean energy source that can’t run out of solar energy. We’ll have access to clean energy for as long as the sun is alive. Experts believe the sun will live on for another 6.5 billion years.

Tidbits

Renewable energy is the most abundant energy resource on earth. At 173,000 terawatts of solar energy hitting our planet continuously.

The first silicon solar cell, was built by Bell Laboratories in 1954. On the first page of its April 26, 1954 issue, The New York Times proclaimed the milestone, “the beginning of a new era, leading eventually to the realization of one of mankind’s most cherished dreams, the harnessing of the almost limitless energy of the sun for the uses of civilization.”

The space industry was an early riser of applying solar technology. In the 1950s, the industry used solar technology to give power aboard spacecraft. The Vanguard 1, the artificial earth satellite powered by solar cells is still the oldest manmade satellite in orbit. It logs more than 6 billion miles.

Demand for renewable energy in the U.S is at an all-time high. The amount installed has jumped more than 23 times over the past eight years The U.S. is the third-largest clean energy market globally and positioned to become second.

As costs continues to drop, solar energy is an economical renewable energy choice for the U.S. The obstacle to affordable clean energy remains in soft costs (permitting, zoning and hooking a solar system up to the network). Local permitting and inspection processes add more than $2,500 to the total cost and can take up to six months to complete.

California’s Mojave Desert is home to Ivanpah Solar Power Facility. This is the world’s biggest solar thermal energy plant. It uses renewable energy power (CSP) technology to focus 173,500 heliostats, each containing two mirrors, onto boilers located in three power towers. The plant has a gross capacity of 392 megawatts (MW). CSP technology allows for solar energy to be stored after the sun sets.

Feed-in-tariffs (Fits) are subsidy schemes to encourage installations of renewable energy panels to create solar energy (electricity). FITs gives an incentive for promotion and adoption of solar energy systems through offsetting the cost of extra investment for installing the solar panels. A feed in tariff is the rate in $/kw that the government or other author ity pays for the production of electricity created from solar energy.

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