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Solar Panel: Disputed Discuss

Solar panels are made of photovoltaic modules that convert sunlight into electricity. A solar panel contains multiple solar cells electrically connected and mounted on a supporting structure. Photovoltaic systems use solar panels to generate electricity for commercial and residential use. Recent innovations aim to improve solar panel efficiency through designs that concentrate sunlight, split light into different wavelengths, or stud photovoltaic surfaces with nanostructures to increase light scattering and absorption.

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Tina Matiușenco
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212 views

Solar Panel: Disputed Discuss

Solar panels are made of photovoltaic modules that convert sunlight into electricity. A solar panel contains multiple solar cells electrically connected and mounted on a supporting structure. Photovoltaic systems use solar panels to generate electricity for commercial and residential use. Recent innovations aim to improve solar panel efficiency through designs that concentrate sunlight, split light into different wavelengths, or stud photovoltaic surfaces with nanostructures to increase light scattering and absorption.

Uploaded by

Tina Matiușenco
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Solar panel

A solar panel is a set of solar photovoltaic modules electrically connected and mounted on a supporting structure. A photovoltaic module is a packaged, connected assembly of solar cells. The solar panel can be used as a component of a larger photovoltaic system to generate and supply electricity in commercial and residential applications. Each module is rated by its DC output power under standard test conditions STC!, and typically ranges from "## to $%# watts. The efficiency of a module determines the area of a module given the same rated output & an '( efficient %$# watt module will have twice the area of a ")( efficient %$# watt module. A single solar module can produce only a limited amount of power* most installations contain multiple modules. A photovoltaic system typically includes a panel or an array of solar modules, an inverter, and sometimes a battery and+or solar tracker and interconnection wiring. Solar modules use light energy photons! from the sun to generate electricity through the photovoltaic effect. The ma,ority of modules use wafer&based crystalline silicon cells or thin&film cells based on cadmium telluride or silicon. The structural load carrying! member of a module can either be the top layer or the back layer. Cells must also be protected from mechanical damage and moisture. -ost solar modules are rigid, but semi&fle.ible ones are available, based on thin&film cells. These early solar modules were first used in space in "/0'. Electrical connections are made in series to achieve a desired output voltage and+or in parallel to provide a desired current capability. The conducting wires that take the current off the modules may contain silver, copper or other non&magnetic conductive transition metals. The cells must be connected electrically to one another and to the rest of the system. E.ternally, popular terrestrial usage photovoltaic modules use -C$ older! or -C1 connectors to facilitate easy weatherproof connections to the rest of the system. 2ypass diodes may be incorporated or used e.ternally, in case of partial module shading, to ma.imi3e the output of module sections still illuminated.

Some recent solar module designs include concentrators in which light is focused by lenses or mirrors onto an array of smaller cells. This enables the use of cells with a high cost per unit area such as gallium arsenide! in a cost&effective way.
Depending on construction, photovoltaic modules can produce electricity from a range of frequencies of light, but usually cannot cover the entire solar range (specifically, ultraviolet, infrared and low or diffused light). Hence much of the incident sunlight energy is wasted by solar modules, and they can give far higher efficiencies if illuminated with monochromatic light. Therefore, another design concept is to split the light into different wavelength ranges and direct the beams onto different cells tuned to those ranges. [ ! This has been pro"ected to be capable of raising efficiency by #$%. &urrently the best achieved sunlight conversion rate (solar module efficiency) is around ' .#% in new commercial products['! typically lower than the efficiencies of their cells in isolation. The most efficient mass(produced solar modules[disputed discuss! have energy density values of up to ).'' *+ft' ( ,# *+m'). [-! . research by /mperial &ollege, 0ondon has shown that the efficiency of a solar panel can be improved by studding the light(receiving semiconductor surface with aluminum nanocylinders similar to the ridges on 0ego bloc1s. The scattered light then travels along a longer path in the semiconductor which meant that more photons could be absorbed and converted into current. .lthough these nanocylinders were used previously in which aluminum was preceded by gold and silver, the light scattering occurred in the near infrared region and visible light was absorbed strongly. .luminum was found to have absorbed ultraviolet part of the spectrum and the visible and near infrared parts of the spectrum were found to be scattered by the aluminum surface. This, the research argued, could bring down the cost significantly and improve the efficiency as aluminum is more abundant and less costly than gold and silver. The research also noted that the increase in current ma1es thinner film solar panels technically feasible without 2compromising power conversion efficiencies, thus reducing material consumption2.[3!

4icro(inverted solar panels are wired in parallel which produces more output than normal panels which are wired in series with the output of the series determined by the lowest performing panel (this is 1nown as the 2&hristmas light effect2). 4icro(inverters wor1 independently so each panel contributes its ma5imum possible output given the available sunlight.

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