If we think about it, the wonders of solar energy are innumerable that we can benefit from. The presence of the sun, the light and heat we feel during the day can also chalk up the darkness of the night. The heat that makes us uncomfortable during the day can also become a source of comfort at night. Where the Sun has been the center of gravity for astronomers since the beginning. Scientists there have also done extensive research on this star. As time passes. With the combination of modern technology, these investigations are becoming more and more sophisticated. On one hand, modern scientific inventions are showing their glory, on the other hand, old inventions are more active and moving from better to better.
Major breakthrough in solar cell technology
Solar cells have an efficiency of about 20 percent, while their manufacturing costs are high, making them far behind other sources of energy production such as oil, gas, fuel, and even nuclear power. The problem is that they only use part of the light spectrum while the other part of the light spectrum that produces heat is wasted. Scientists working at Ebstein University and their colleagues have developed a new type of solar cell that harnesses the heat generated by sunlight and converts it into electricity.
The new technology, called PET (ie Photon Enhanced Thermionic Emission, PETE), can operate at extremely high temperatures, unlike currently available solar cells, which use light and heat to generate energy. Efficiency can increase by up to 50 percent, making this technology competitive with other sources of power generation.
The world’s largest solar power plant is going to be built in South Africa. The world’s largest solar power plant with a capacity of five gigawatts of electricity. It is being built near the Kalahari desert in the north of South Africa. This region is considered among the hottest three percent regions of the world. Concentrating solar mirrors at the plant (both arched and dish shaped mirrors are used in power towers) are used with photovoltaic technology.
Using solar energy, molten salt
A solar thermal power plant typically uses parabolic mirrors that focus sunlight onto a boiler system. is produced. The drawback is that the plant will only work when the sun is shining and will stop working at night. It is possible to use a battery to store the electricity, but this is a very expensive method. Now, an American company, Solar Reserve, is building a plant that will collect the heat from the sun in the form of molten salt.
A mixture of sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate is heated to over 1000 degrees Celsius by sunlight, which is concentrated by thousands of mirrors. The molten salt is then used to generate electricity. Molten salt technology has previously been used to generate 10 megawatts of electricity in the Mojare desert, as it is connected through a pipe to a custom-built steam turbine. Now a 150 MW solar power plant will be established in California. It will take about 13 months to complete.
Solar window
A beautiful flower-decorated glass window that can generate electricity seems like a myth, but a private company presented an early prototype of such a window at a 2010 exhibition in Tokyo. This window uses a Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC), which has up to 10% energy harvesting capability. Screen printing technique is used for the beautiful design as long as sunlight hits the window. A fan was running from it.
Solar panels that use light and heat
Less than half of the heat that the sun gives to the earth consists of infrared light, while the remaining heat is in the form of visible light. When bright sunlight hits the surface of the ocean, the irradiance is a little more than one kilowatt per square meter of surface area. Solar panels need visible light from the sun in order to generate electricity, but they cannot use all the light received from the sun in the production of energy, however, new devices are being developed in this regard. Through infrared, the lower red rays (which are also available at night) can be used to generate energy.
This technology consists of arrays of millions of nanoscale light-sensitive antennas, which have been an important source of energy until now. Half of the total energy in sunlight is in the infrared region. Infrared light is reflected from the earth’s surface even after the sun has set. This energy can be captured in the form of heat even at night.
Steve Novack, who works at the US Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, has estimated that with the help of this technology, the efficiency of the new generation of solar cells can be increased to 64 percent. Energy can also be generated. But solar cell efficiency can be improved by capturing excess thermal energy during daytime hours and can use both heat and light as energy sources.
Solar powered spray
New solar technology is witnessing truly astonishing growth. A Norwegian company has created a film which, if sprayed on the window glass, will turn into a solar panel. Within this film, metallic nanoparticles are placed in a composite matrix. This work has been carried out in collaboration with the University of Leicester’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.
When part of the light falls on the window, the film absorbs it and the window appears slightly colored. Researchers hope for 20 percent efficiency from this new solar cell technology. Imagine your window being turned into a generator of clean electricity.
Solar-Fueled Villa Airplane
In July 2010, Andre Borschberg boarded the plane in Switzerland and started flying it from Payerne Air Base, Switzerland. It flew for 10 hours at an altitude of 5864 meters. It remained in space for 62 more hours before , unusual in that it was the first man-made spacecraft powered entirely by solar energy.
It had 10,002 solar panels installed in its 36-meter-long wings that stored energy from the sun, so the plane could fly at night. It broke the record for duration and height (flight) of solar-powered ships, the Swiss company Solar Impulse, which built this ship, is now preparing to build a bigger ship.
Nuclear fusion, the quest for unlimited energy
Stars including our Sun. Nuclear fusion produces energy in this process two more atomic nuclei (eg hydrogen) combine to form a new heavy atom (eg hydrogen). A large amount of energy is produced in this process. It is the nuclear fusion reaction that takes place on the Sun that keeps our planet warm and because of which life exists here. Lawrence Levermore National Laboratory (National Ignition Faculty) ) A giant laser the size of three football fields is being developed in Central America. It will simulate the process taking place on the Sun.
It will fuse two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium. A large laser beam will charge it by pushing it back and forth about 1 mile. It will then be split into 192 beams and focused in a concentric fashion onto a small point, containing deuterium and tritium.
The temperature charged by these concentrated rays will be up to 100 million degrees Celsius, which is hotter than the Sun, along with 100 billion atmospheric pressures. The resulting fusion reaction must release several times more energy than the energy supplied by the laser.
If it starts working in practice, seawater, which is the main source of hydrogen and its isotopes. It will become the most important source of energy on our planet. In the future, thousands of small solar panels will be created in every country and will provide electricity to the national grid station and then it will replace the current source of our earth’s energy, mineral oil. .