The Power of the Sun

The sun is the closest star to Earth. Even at a distance of 93 million miles, its gravitational pull holds the planet in orbit. It radiates light and heat, or solar energy, which makes it possible for life to exist on Earth.  

Plants need sunlight to grow. Animals, including humans, need plants for food and the oxygen they produce. Without heat from the sun, Earth would freeze. There would be no winds, ocean currents, or clouds to transport water.

And according to Sandia National Laboratories the sun delivers more energy to Earth in an hour than we use in a year.

To put that in numbers, from the US Department of Energy explains that:

• Each hour 430 quintillion Joules of energy from the sun hits the Earth. That's 430 with 18 zeroes after it!
• In comparison, the total amount of energy that all humans use in a year is 410 quintillion Joules.
• For context, the average American home used 39 billion Joules of electricity in 2013. 

So we have a virtually endless (the sun won't die out for another 5 billion years or so) source of clean energy in the form of solar power. The problem is we’re not just capturing it. Less than one percent of the total human energy need is currently filled by solar energy. 

Capturing this power

The desire to make use of this energy has been around for ages. Early civilizations around the world positioned buildings to face south to gather heat and light. They used windows and skylights for the same reason, as well as to allow for air circulation

Humans were aware of the power of the sun. Some of the most awe-inspiring monuments to the importance of the sun are the megaliths built during the late Neolithic Age (ca. 5,000 BCE to 2,000 BCE). Undoubtedly, the most famous of these is Stonehenge, which is oriented in such a way that the monument’s heelstone aligns perfectly with the rising Sun on the winter solstice.

Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans also regarded the sun as a deity.

Solar cells

The search for a way to use the power of the sun continued through the centuries. It was accentuated in 1839 when French scientist Alexander Edmond Beckerel discovered the photovoltaic effect. At age 19, in his father's laboratory, silver chloride was placed in an acidic solution and illuminated while connected to platinum electrodes. During the experiment Becquerel recognized that a voltage had developed when light struck the electrode. The photovoltaic effect is sometimes called the Becquerel Effect

But it would be decades before the first solar cell was developed. In April 1954, researchers at Bell Laboratories demonstrated the first practical silicon solar cell.

The technology continued to develop over the years and by the 1970s the first solar panels began appearing for commercial purposes. 

Now there are more than two million residential and commercial solar installations in the U.S. are already tapping into this deep well of electricity. But solar power is still minuscule in comparison to energy generated by limited and ever pricier fossil fuels.

So much of the sun’s power goes away unused every day. 

But you can do something about it. A home solar energy system is now more affordable than ever. 

If you want to know how much it will cost to cover your energy needs, you can easily find out with the Hahasmart price checker. Just provide your address and your average monthly utility bill and you’ll get the actual price of solar panels and inverters - which are the most critical parts of a solar powered system - as well as provide you with an estimated cost of installation based on thousands of completed solar projects in your area. 

They’ll even provide you with an estimated buyback period, the point where the electricity savings achieved with your solar array cover the purchase of your residential solar panels and your system becomes free.

In addition, they’ll connect you with their installer network to get your residence equipped with solar power as possible.  

But the installation of solar panels on your home is only half the battle in the pursuit of harnessing the sun’s power. 

The other issue is how to store it. Part of the problem is that we don’t have batteries powerful enough to store this energy at night when there’s no sunlight.  

Lithium-ion is the most common type of battery, but the bigger it gets, the less useful it becomes. For consumer electronics, lithium-ion batteries work well because they can be recharged quickly and they offer a lot of power for their size and weight. Even for medium-sized applications, such as powering electric cars, they get the job done.

The problem is that storing solar and wind power from commercial farms would require warehouses full of massive batteries, and at this size, a major problem becomes apparent - the bigger the battery, the higher the temperature. This makes the probability of dangerous situations to occur more likely in large-scale solar and wind energy storage.

The U.S. Department of Energy is trying to change that. Last year they announced a round of $30 million in funding for next-generation technology leading to batteries that can store electricity in bulk for at least 10 hours. That would make a big change, but still more needs to be done before the solar energy is used at its fullest. 

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