Reduce Your Carbon Footprint by Using Solar Energy

Greenhouse gases, greenhouse effect, carbon footprint and many other terms referring to our impact on the environment have become frequent concepts in our daily lives. Using renewable energy like solar energy will make a huge positive impact on the environment. Solar power refers to sun’s energy, converted for either heating or electricity, by private households or even businesses. Solar power is produced by a surface that attracts the energy of the sun and a method of converting this energy into electricity or heat. This method can be either directly using solar panels for electricity, or indirect using a solar thermal collector to generate heat.

The good thing about using solar power is its initial investment to install, and then the energy resulting from the system is free. In addition, there are tariffs that pay you for the green energy you produce. Moreover, both solar panels and solar thermal collectors need almost no maintenance once they you install them.

What we are most interested in this case is that solar power is green. Why so? Because it relies only on the energy of the sun, which is available free and green. Whatever solar system you choose to install, it will make no noise. It just needs some roof space for the panels to attract enough sunlight.

Solar power saves money for the industries by reducing their dependence on the electric company power, but it also assist reduce their carbon footprint. This is an important part of helping the environment by reducing CO2 emissions and conserving resources through renewable energy.

What is Carbon Footprint?

Amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with all the activities of a person or other entity (e.g., building, corporation, country, etc.) are called Carbon footprint. It includes direct emissions, such as those that result from fossil-fuel combustion in manufacturing, heating, and transportation, as well as emissions required to produce the electricity associated with goods and services consumed. In addition, the carbon footprint concept also often includes the emissions of other greenhouse gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide, or chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

This has an impact on the temperature of earth’s atmosphere. If the number of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, etc. increases, the average temperature of earth would increase, thus posing a serious threat of melting of glaciers and polar ice-caps. The temperature also plays important role in the weather pattern, and rising temperatures may cause it to change.

Solar power is non-polluting which means no greenhouse gases. Going solar is by far the cleanest form of renewable energy to power your home and community. So installing solar panels means you will generate your own clean energy, diminish your carbon emissions and be part of a clean energy revolution.

In summary, solar power has an affordable front-end cost, saves money monthly on energy bills, and cuts down on the CO2 emissions that affect our environment.  An investment in solar power makes sense all around. You should also keep in mind that apart from taking advantage of solar energy, there are other things to do in order to reduce your carbon footprint.

Related Article:

https://www.reonenergy.com/quality-control-can-it-help-solar-epc-companies-optimize-their-process/

http://solarpower.com/blog/2019/07/09/mpower-technology-develops-flexible-resilient-solar-panels/

https://solar-energy-in-pakistan.blogspot.com/2019/07/solar-panel-by-any-semiconductor.html

Quality Control – Can it Help Solar EPC Companies Optimize their Process?

In order to increase investor confidence and long-term viability of solar systems, establishing best practices for PV system installations and operations is paramount. This is where the role of Quality Control comes into play. The primary purpose of Quality Control is to ensure that solar installations and maintenance procedures are implemented at the highest possible standards in order to optimize performance and minimize costs.

What is Quality Control?

Quality control is simply a tool that can assess the quality of a company’s products and services against a predetermined parameter. QC is a vital requirement to build a successful business that is able to fulfil customer demands and expectations.

How can QC Practices benefit providers and consumers?

Implementing effective QC can be beneficial for the consumer in various ways.

• It encourages quality consciousness
• It helps increase customer satisfaction
• It enables effective utilization of resources at all stages of PV deployment
• The Stages of Performing QC

The first stage where QC is performed is the conceptual phase. Here, the most important aspect is design verification. The expected output of the PV system is tested through computerized simulations that depict the system’s ability to withstand harsh environmental conditions.

Next comes the installation stage where various QC tests are performed including pre dispatch inspections, visual controls, dimensional controls and damage controls. In the final commissioning stage, the PV system is tested for its performance and output. Test runs are carried out to ensure that production has followed the correct procedures and start up time has been saved. This stage of QC continues throughout the lifespan of the system (assuming an O&M contact has been signed) and includes regular monitoring and inspections of the PV site to ensure maximum productivity.

Conclusion

It is essential for a solar EPC company to implement Quality Control at all phases of the solar contract. These quality practices are employed by EPCs and contractors in order to mitigate the risks and costs associated with poor quality. Performing Quality Control checks regularly and systematically with pre-determined specifications that can gauge whether each phase of solar installation fulfils the required standards.

The article was originally published on Reon Energy Ltd.

Solar Panel by Any Semiconductor

Harnessing the massive amounts of energy that reaches the Earth from the Sun is a challenging but necessary step to ensure that the future energy needs of the planet can be met. When light reaches a solar panel or photovoltaic (PV) cell, it can either be reflected, absorbed or pass right through it. At the heart of a solar cell is a semiconductor layer, which is unequivocally the most important part of the cell.

Now make a solar panel by any semiconductor. The researchers at Berkeley Lab have developed a new technology, which allows manufacture of low-cost, high-efficiency solar cells using any semiconductor material. This material combines the properties of metals and insulators to yield a substance uniquely skilled at converting sunlight to electricity. When the semiconductor absorbs light, photons transfer their energy to electrons which flow through the material as an electrical current towards metal contacts above and below the semiconductor layer, from where it can travel to the power grid.

The new technology also known as Screening-engineered field-effect photovoltaics or SFPV has opened the door for using inexpensive semiconductors like metal oxides, sulfides and phosphides, which were considered unsuitable some time ago. The efficiency of a PV cell is defined as the amount of electrical power divided by the energy from sunlight in. The amount of electricity is dependent on the quality of light offered – it’s intensity and wavelengths – and the performance characteristics of the cell.

Physicist Alex Zettl said: “It’s time we put bad materials to good use,” and futher Alex pointed out: “Our technology allows us to sidestep the difficulty in chemically tailoring many earth abundant, non-toxic semiconductors and instead tailor these materials simply by applying an electric field.” Among the most efficient and by far the most common semiconductor used is silicon which is found in approximately 90% of modules sold. It was first used in solar cells in 1956 and is considered a key material in solar energy production.

The researchers said that many abundant materials can instead be tailored for solar power applications by applying an electric field.

A moderately screening top electrode allows the gate electric field to amply penetrate the electrode and more uniformly modulate the semiconductor carrier concentration and type to induce a p-n junction with SFPV technology. “This enables the creation of high quality p-n junctions in semiconductors that are difficult if not impossible to dope by conventional chemical methods.”

SFPV effects in a self-gating configuration, where the gate is powered internally by the electrical activity of the cell itself.

“The self-gating configuration eliminates the need for an external gate power source, which will simplify the practical implementation of SFPV devices. Additionally, the gate can serve a dual role as an antireflection coating, a feature already common and necessary for high efficiency photovoltaics.” Other cells focus sunlight onto PV materials using mirrors or lenses. These concentration PVs (CPV) require less material as the light is focused on a comparatively small area and have the highest overall efficiency because the light becomes concentrated on one spot.

Related Topics:

https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/articles/solar-photovoltaic-cell-basics

https://solar-energy-in-pakistan.blogspot.com/2019/03/an-argument-on-wind-and-solar-power.html

https://www.reonenergy.com/our-projects/

Why Solar Metal’s Performance has Improved?

The performance of cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film solar cells has improved in terms of efficiency by the addition of selenium in ground-breaking research. The blue solar panels that are on the rooftops and landscapes are made out of this semiconductor – crystalline silicon, which is also found in many electronic devices.

A research team from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of California San Diego and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has discovered that adding alkali metal to perovskite solar cells could enable energy devices to last longer and maintain better performance.

“Perovskites could really change the game in solar,” David Fenning, a professor of nanoengineering at the University of California San Diego, said in a statement. “They have the potential to reduce costs without giving up performance. But there's still a lot to learn fundamentally about these materials.”

Over the last decade, the researchers from Colorado State University (CSU) have led pioneering studies to advance the performance and reduce the cost of solar energy. They have tried fabricating and testing new materials that usually extend beyond the capabilities of silicon. They focused on a material that has shown promise for replacing the semiconductor – it’s called cadmium telluride (CdTe).

In a key breakthrough, the researchers at CSU’s National Science Foundation in collaboration with partners at Loughborough University, United Kingdom, supported Next Generation Photovoltaics Centre and they came up with how the performance of CdTe thin-film solar cells is improved further by the addition of selenium. The result of the research was also published recently in the journal, Nature Energy. In the context, Kurt Barth, a director of the Next Generation Photovoltaics Centre and an associate research professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering said that their paper goes right to the fundamental understanding of what happens when selenium is alloyed to CdTe.

The CSU collaborators W.S. Sampath and Amit Munshi, together with Barth and an international team could solve why the addition of selenium clocked record-breaking CdTe solar cell efficiency – the ratio of energy output to light input of over 22%. Their experiments highlighted that selenium overcomes the effects of atomic-scale defects in cadmium telluride crystals. And the results also provided a new path for widespread less expensive solar-generated electricity.

Meanwhile, the paper also highlights that electrons generated when sunlight hits the solar panel that is selenium-treated are less prone to get trapped and lost at the material’s defects, located at the boundaries between crystal grains. This increases the amount of power extracted from the solar cells. Working with materials fabricated at CSU via advanced deposition methods, the team discovered this unexpected behaviour by measuring how much light is emitted from selenium-containing panels.

In the context, Tom Fiducia, the paper’s lead author and a PhD student at the University of Loughborough, working with Professor Michael Walls stated that good solar cell material that is defect-free is very efficient at emitting light. It has also been reported that the National Science Foundation has supported the work of CSU’s Next Generation Photovoltaics Centre since 2009.

Related Articles:

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https://solar-energy-in-pakistan.blogspot.com/2019/06/new-solar-panel-technology-to-produce.html

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-05/csu-rgk052219.php