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Solar cells can be used to directly convert sunlight into electricity, making the home owners more energy independent. Most commonly, solar cells in homes are used through the installation of solar panels.

Solar panels can collect sunlight during the day and transform it into energy. The stored energy can be used to supply power to the home by heating water and producing electricity. Although installing the solar panels can be simple, but it can be physically demanding.

1. First of all, you need to purchase a solar panel mounting kit. Usually, kits contain the same types of materials, such as solar panels, mounts, hardware, an inverter, and a voltage gauge. You can purchase the kits at any home improvement store.

2. Using a stud finder, locate all the roof rafters. Make a straight line over the rafter locations using a chalk box. This will help you to make a nicely designed array of panels.

3. Pre-drill the solar panel mounts to make sure that the rafters do not break up while you are the installing them.

4. Using the stainless steel lag bolts included in the mounting kit, fasten the mounts to the roof.

5. Using 3/8″ stainless steel bolts and brackets included in the mounting kit, attach the solar panels to the mounts. Keep in mind that the bolt size may vary depending on the brand of solar panel.

6. Attach the panels to an inverter using an electrical tool.

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Wind energy is one of the biggest source of renewable energy. In order to understand the working of the wind turbines, it is important to know about the different components of the wind turbine.

Although there are different types of wind turbines that operate, but the simplest possible wind-energy turbine consists of three major parts:

1. Rotor blades

The blades are the main part of the system. The blades act as barriers to the wind, although recent blade designs do more than just act as a barrier. As the wind forces the blades to move, the energy gets transferred to the rotor.

2. Shaft

The shaft of the wind-turbine is connected to the center of the rotor. As the rotor spins, the shaft spins together with it. This allows the rotor to transfer its mechanical, rotational energy to the shaft, which enters an electrical generator on the other end.

3. Generator

Basically, a generator is quite a simple device. The generator uses electromagnetic induction to produce an electrical voltage, which is a difference in electrical charge. Voltage is the force that moves electricity, or electrical current, from one point to another. Thus the generating voltage is actually generating current. A simple generator is made up of magnets and a conductor. The conductor is simply a coiled wire. The shaft is connected to an assembly of permanent magnets that goes around the coil of wire. When the rotor spins the shaft, the shaft spins the assembly of magnets, generating voltage in the coil of wire. That voltage drives electrical current out through power lines for distribution.

This makes up the essential parts of the wind turbines. A number of wind turbines are then planted together in a particular area to formulate a wind farm, which will be explained in the upcoming articles.

Technorati Tags: Wind,Turbine,energy,generator,voltage,conductor,turbines,electrical

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Whenever we think of solar energy, we assume that it is just simple sunlight, ignoring the fact that visible light is just part of the complete electromagnetic spectrum.

It is important to keep in mind that electromagnetic radiation is not monochromatic, it’s made up of a wide range of different wavelengths, and therefore different energy levels.

It is possible to separate light into different wavelengths, which can be seen in the form of a rainbow. And as the light that falls on our solar cell has multiple photons carrying different ranges of energies, some of these photons don’t have enough energy to alter an electron-hole pair.

This means that they’ll simply pass through the cell as if it were transparent. However, other photons may have too much energy. Only a specific amount of energy, which can be measured in electron volts (eV), and is about 1.1 eV for crystalline silicon, is needed to loosen up an electron. This is called the band gap energy of a material.

In case the photon has more energy than the required amount, then this extra energy is lost. Thus if the photon has less energy, or has too much energy, in both the cases energy will be lost. These losses can account for about 70 percent of the radiation energy incident on our cell.

Question arises that why can’t we use a material that has a really low band gap, so we can use more photons? But this is not possible as unfortunately, our band gap also decides the strength (voltage) of our electric field, and if it’s too low, then whatever we make up in extra current through absorbing more photons, we will loose by having a small voltage.

Balancing both these effects, the optimal band gap can be found around 1.4 eV for a cell made from a single material.

However, these aren’t the only losses that we face. The electrons have to flow from one side of the cell to the other through an external circuit. The bottom can be made with a metal which allows good conduction, but if the top is completely covered, then photons can’t get through the opaque conductor and we lose all of our current.

Also, as silicon is a semiconductor, its internal resistance is fairly high, leading to high losses. To minimize these losses, cells are typically covered by a metallic contact grid that shortens the distance that electrons have to travel while covering only a small part of the cell surface. Even after this, some of the photons are blocked by the grid.

Technorati Tags: Energy,Solar,Cell,radiation,voltage,cells,electromagnetic,photons,electron,silicon,photon,electrons

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We have all seen calculators with solar cells, that enable the device to work without any batteries, and can be used for unlimited time period as long as there’s enough light.

These solar cells that are present in calculators and many other devices are also called photovoltaic (PV) cells. As the name depicts, these cells have the capability of converting sunlight directly into electricity.

A group of cells can also be connected together electrically, fitted into a frame to form a solar panel. Moreover, these solar panels can be combined together to form larger solar arrays, similar to the ones operating at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

Photovoltaic cells are made up of special material called semiconductors such as silicon, which is currently used most commonly.

When light falls on to the cell, a certain amount of the light is absorbed by the semiconductor material. The energy of the absorbed light is then transferred to the semiconductor. The energy is used to loosen up the electrons, allowing them to flow freely, and thus create electricity.

PV cells also have one or more electric fields that force electrons freed by light absorption to flow in a certain direction making a current. Thus by inserting metal contacts on the top and bottom of the PV cell, we can direct the current for some external use. This current, combined together with the cell’s voltage due to the built-in electric fields, defines the power that the solar cell can produce.

This is the basic process through which photovoltaic cells work, but clearly there’s much more to it, which will be explained in the proceeding articles.

Technorati Tags: Photovoltaic,panel,cell,energy,voltage,Cells,batteries,panels,semiconductor,electrons

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Solar cells or photovoltaic semiconductors are the most easy and cheap way to charge small batteries. Making a solar battery charger is inexpensive and provides savings in the future from the cost of new batteries.

Here are some simple steps for building a solar charger:

Step 1

For charging a AAA battery it’s necessary that solar panel must generate more than 1.5 volts in direct sunlight. Smaller solar panels can not do this on their own, for they should be soldered in a series to boost the output voltage. For connecting them in series wire the positive lead of the first panel to the negative lead of the second panel. Continue this procedure until the output voltage gets higher enough.

Step 2

Last positive lead must be connected one side of the diode and other side will be wired to the positive terminal of the battery. The small plastic battery holder makes it easy to change the batteries out once charged. Remaining positive and negative leads will be solder to the terminals on the holder. When it will be completed then the circuit will be having chained solar panels to the battery holder, if more than one panel is required.

Step 3

Build the entire solar array on the wood board to give it a solid surface. For fixing each panel on the wood apply a small amount of glue at back of each panel and while affixing them on wood don’t press them hard because solar panels are glass.

Step 4

On final step place the battery in the holder and put the entire apparatus into direct sunlight. One battery charging time will be proportional to the output voltage. For instance is solar panel array puts out 3 volts, then the battery may charge to 95% in eight hours and if out is doubled then it might take only 3 to 4 hours.

Tips and Precautions

While using electricity and soldering wear proper protection equipment and you must be having proper ventilation while soldering.

Never try to connect solar panels in “parallel”, or positive-to-positive.

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Electric generator is a device or machines that covert the mechanical energy into electrical energy. It’s based on the principal of electromagnetic induction that is scientific law, which was discovered by British scientist Michael Faraday and American scientist Joseph Henry in 1831.

According to this scientific principle an electric conductor such as copper wire moving through a magnetic field, electric current will flow through the conductor. The moving wire’s mechanical energy is converted into electrical energy. Faraday and Henry found that when a magnet is moved in a coil of wire, electric current is generated.

According to Faraday’s law of induction a moving magnetic field will cause electrons to move. Generators create electron movement in the copper wire coils contained within by moving them through a magnetic field.

Faraday was the one who built the first electromagnetic generator “Faraday disc”; it was a simple copper disc rotating between the poles of a horseshoe magnet. That generator produced a small DC voltage and large amounts of current that was inefficient, but that was good start for future generators.

Generator magnets pressures up the electrons to push them and create a flow or current of electricity. The current is measured in amps or the number of electrons movement. The pressure that pushes the electrons is called voltage and is measured in volts.

Basically a mechanical force creates a generator that turns a conductive wire or bar within a magnetic field. For spinning the conductive object force can be gained by moving water, steam, wind, gas engine or hand cranked levers. T

he electricity then flows in to electric motor or other electric powered device that reserves the process and the electricity makes it move. Small generators create a magnetic field with permanent magnets while larger generators create magnetic field with set of metal coils with electric current flowing through them, in larger generators electromagnets are used.

There are so many types of generators and each generator produce electricity with same basic method that is spinning the conductor through a magnetic field or magnet through a conductor.

Today there are so many types of generators such as Magnethydrodynamic generators creates electric power from hot gases moving through a magnetic field. Before 1960 vehicles use DC generators with electromechanical regulators but now they had been replaced with alternators, which are lot cheaper to recharge the batteries. Alternator is a type of a generator, which creates a magnetic field that rotates and passes through coils to create an electric current. While engine generators are the combination of electrical generators and engines, which are used in piston engines or gas turbines. These types generators can be small portable gas powered units to large turbines.

In hydroelectric power plants falling water is used to turn turbine that provide the mechanical energy to turn the generator and create electricity. Then through transmission lines electricity is delivered to homes and industries.

In some sailing boats water or wind powered generators are use to charge the batteries through the use of small propellers, wind turbine or impeller.

There are tiny small type generators also which are used in bicycle lights, radios and flashlights.

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In order to develop lower-cost, semiconductor materials for solar cells, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Dow Chemical Company have agreed to join together in a four-year contract.

The $4.2m project will aim at exploring the earth-abundant materials for solar-energy applications.

Initially, the focus will be on direct-bandgap semiconductor materials that make use of less costly and commonly available elements, that offer lower cost than those used in today’s thin-film photovoltaic (PV) semiconductors.

Most of the solar cells today use silicon as their main component. Although silicon is an abundant low-cost material, it has certain energy inefficiency disadvantages.

While absorbing photons to create a voltage, silicon looses much more energy as heat. Thus it is important to find more efficient cells that can be made by using direct-bandgap materials. However, such materials make use of expensive, and rare elements such as gallium (Ga) and indium (In).

Thus the success of this project could lead to a breakthrough in the solar industry. By using low-cost materials, we would be able to generate more electricity, giving way to less wastage.

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