What Is Solar Energy:

Solar energy is radiation from the sun capable of producing heat, causing chemical reactions, or generating electricity. The total amount of solar energy incident on Earth is vastly more than the worlds current and anticipated energy requirements. The sun emits enough power onto Earth each second to satisfy the entire human energy demand for over two hours. If suitably harnessed, this highly diffused source has the potential to satisfy all future energy needs. Solar energy is expected to become increasingly attractive as a renewable energy source because of its inexhaustible supply and its nonpolluting character, in contrast to the finite fossil fuels coal, petroleum, and natural gas.

The Sun is an extremely powerful energy source, and sunlight by far is the largest source of energy received by Earth, but its intensity on Earth’s surface is quite low. This is due to the enormous radial spreading of radiation from the distant Sun. A relatively minor additional loss is due to Earths atmosphere and clouds, which absorb or scatter as much as 54% of the incoming sunlight. The sunlight that does reach the ground consists of almost 50% visible light, 45% infrared radiation, and smaller amounts of ultraviolet and other forms of electromagnetic radiation.

The potential for solar energy is enormous, since about 200,000 times the worlds total daily electric-generating capacity is received by Earth every day in the form of solar energy. Unfortunately, though solar energy itself is free the high cost of its collection, conversion, and storage still limits its exploitation is many places.

Solar Systems

Solar power works by converting light from the sun into electricity. This electricity can then be used in your home or exported to the grid when it is not needed. This is done by installing solar panels on your rooftop which generate DC (Direct Current) electricity. This is then fed into a solar inverter which converts the DC electricity from your solar panel into AC (Alternating Current) electricity.

Your solar panels are made up of silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells. When sunlight hits your solar panels, the solar PV cells absorb the sunlight’s rays and electricity is produced via the Photovoltaic Effect. The electricity produced is called Direct Current (DC) electricity, and which is not suitable to be used in your home by your appliances. Instead, the DC electricity is directed to your central inverter (or micro inverter, depending on your system set up).

Your inverter can convert the DC electricity into Alternating Current (AC) electricity, which can then be used in your home. From here, the AC electricity is directed to your switchboard that allows your usable AC electricity to be sent to the appliances in your home. Your switchboard will always ensure your solar energy will be used first to power your home and only accessing additional energy from the grid when your solar production is not enough.

With solar power, you do not need to switch it on in the morning or switch it off at night – the system will do this seamlessly and automatically. You also do not need to switch between solar power and the grid, as your solar system can determine when is best to do so based on the amount of energy being consumed in your house. In fact, a solar system requires very little maintenance (as there are no moving parts) which means you will hardly know it is there.

Grid-Tied Systems

A grid-tied solar system is one that remains connected to the electrical grid. Such a system generates power for the home, and it feeds any excess power it generates into the grid.

The amount of power it feeds into the grid can slow down the home’s electric meter as it measures usage. It can often make the meter go backward. When the meter ‘spins backwards’ it means that electricity is being fed into the grid. Grid-tied solar is currently the most popular type of home solar power system on the market.

Hybrid Systems

As the name suggests is a hybrid between the traditional on-grid inverter and off-grid inverters. During normal operation, the hybrid inverter synchronizes with your mains utility power and supplements your power usage using solar power during the day. In addition to this cost-saving during daylight hours, batteries are used to supplement your usage during the evening hours.

In addition, the solar hybrid inverters have an Emergency Power Supply (EPS) that offers backup power if your main utility power fails. The backup power available should be sufficient for basic usage in your home when there is no utility power.

The solar hybrid inverter will first use solar power, should the demand exceed the solar power it will supplement it with mains utility power. If the solar power exceeds the power demand the excess power is used to charge batteries. If the batteries are fully charged the excess power can be fed back into the grid. Feeding power back into the grid is not available with all municipalities now and can be disabled or enabled on a case by case basis.

Solar Hybrid Inverters offer a great value for money alternative to a complete off-grid solution saving you money on your day-to-day usage as well as backup solutions during power outages, load-shedding, or fault.

Advantages of solar power

A major advantage of using solar energy is that it is a renewable resource. We will have a steady, limitless supply of sunlight of another 5 billion years. Solar energy is clean and after the solar technology equipment is constructed and put in place, solar energy does not need fuel to work. It also does not emit greenhouse gases or toxic materials and making use of solar energy can drastically reduce the impact we have on the environment.

Solar energy is one of the most attractive renewable energies because of its flexibility – its capability to power cities and industry using large solar plants while at the same time offerings a stand-alone capability in the most isolated rural regions.