What’s new in the solar industry?

The popularity of solar panels increases substantially as the earth experiences dramatic climate events. Solar energy is such a vast energy resource that it can be used for our everyday needs, including electrical power, heating and cooling, water heating, industrial process heat, cooking, transportation,  and fuel production. It comes to us as radiation which is pure energy (no mass associated with it), which is the highest form of energy and can be converted to many other forms of power for our everyday use. A tiny fraction of the solar energy that falls on the earth is sufficient to take care of all of the needs on the earth.

However, it is available only during daytime, and even during daytime, it is not available during cloudy and rainy periods. So it is obvious that if we are to depend on solar energy for our needs, we must be able to store it efficiently and cost-effectively. By the way, wind, biomass, ocean energy, hydro etc. are the indirect forms of solar energy, that is, nature converts solar energy to these forms for our benefit. Even fossil fuels are a stored form of solar energy, which nature stored for us over millions of years for use during emergencies. So the principal goals for solar are as follows:

Increase the efficiency of conversion to other forms while also reducing the cost.

Store energy more efficiently and reduce the costs.

Find newer ways to convert solar energy into useful forms.

Since electricity has become the preferred form of energy for almost all of our needs, a major emphasis in research has been on increasing the efficiency of conversion to electricity and reducing the costs. There are two main ways of converting solar energy into electricity – photovoltaics (PV) and solar thermal power (commonly known as CSP, an acronym for concentrating solar power).

The trend in solar research

The trend in research in PV is focused on using abundant materials for PV since some of the materials in today’s PV panels, such as Cadmium, Tellurium, Gallium, indium, selenium etc. are not abundant and also become hazardous waste at the end of panel life. Silicon, which is still the major material used in solar cells is, of course, available abundantly on earth.  It uses the same thermal power conversion as the conventional thermal power (fossil fuel or nuclear based) and can, therefore, be integrated with the existing power infrastructure easily.

There has never been a better time to install a solar energy system!

If you want to move into the future and join the solar revolution, or if you want to find out what solar panels are right for you, go to HahaSmart.com and try our price checker tool. You can see how much a system will cost, and how much you can save over the next 20 years.

For more information relating to going solar, don't forget to visit our solar blog section for more handy guides and articles.