Future Of Solar Technology

                                      Solar Future Technology

When you imagine the energy of the future, Solar energy is probably in the picture. After all, it's reliable, powerful, and powers the vast majority of life on Earth.

                    In recent years, less than 2% of the world's electricity has come from solar energy, but new inventions have the potential to change that.

                So here are five ways solar energy could help power the future. You might think that the vast arid deserts are the perfect place to set up solar farms.

            After all, the desert sunlight is intense and you usually don't have to worry about clouds. In addition, there is a lot of wide open space. But there is a problem: solar panels are not heat fans.

         Solar panels work by converting light directly into electricity: when they absorb sunlight, this energy releases electrons, and these loose electrons create an electric current, which can be captured and transferred to a wire. The point is, solar panels do this most efficiently at temperatures below 25 degrees Celsius.

     This is because when solar panels heat up, electrons pick up this extra energy from their surroundings, which puts them in a more excited state. When they are already excited, they have less space to absorb energy from the sun.

       Thus, they work best in temperate climates where, unfortunately, it can sometimes be difficult to find the space to install a giant field of solar panels.

          But since the 2000s, countries around the world have been implementing

What appears to be a win-win solution: a system called agrivoltaic. In agrivoltaics, solar panels are installed above the crop fields. In this way, there is no need to free up additional space just for the panels,

        On top of that, crops help keep things cool by releasing water through their leaves. This release of water works like transpiration, the evaporation of water removes heat from a plant, which lowers the temperature of the plant and also cools the surrounding area.

            So, it can help keep things nice and sweet for solar panels, it makes them much more efficient! Galloping researchers at the University of Arizona found that between May and July 2019, solar panels

              More cropland was three percent more efficient than solar panels in the same region that were not on cropland. It might not seem like a lot, but over time those little gains add up.

              For a house or building running on solar energy, that would represent almost three days of electricity during those three months. Engineers also extended a similar concept to a configuration called float o voltaic, in which floating solar panels are placed over bodies of water, which are also generally cooler than air and help keep panels cool and to operate efficiently.

            As an added bonus, agrivoltaics and floatovoltaics also open up many new possibilities when it comes to finding space for huge arrays of panels.

      Configurations like these already exist all over the world and they are increasingly popular. If this continues, agrivoltaics and floatovoltaics could produce a significant fraction of the world's energy in the future. Engineers are always trying to get as much energy as possible from solar panels. One of the things they need to think about is the exact direction a group needs to look.

           You see, solar panels produce the most energy when the sun's rays hit them from the front, rather than at an angle. So, traditionally, people have installed these panels at a fixed angle that receives the most direct sunlight at their specific latitude.

             But this is not a perfect solution, as the angle of the sunlight is constantly changing depending on the time of day and the season.

             This is why engineers invented what are called photovoltaic trackers, or PV trackers. Photovoltaic trackers move solar panels along tracks that follow the sun's arc.

          The trackers make sure that the sun's rays always hit the panels head-on, so that they always perform at their peak. To operate, these systems use about 5-10% of the energy they produce, but the energy gained outweighs these losses. In fact, these mounts can boost the amount of electricity a solar panel generates by up to 45 percent, depending on the geographic location. In places far from the equator, where the angle of sunlight varies significantly between summer and winter, 

              PV trackers can be especially useful. They’re generally still too heavy to be practical on rooftops, which have to be structurally reinforced to carry something so heavy, but they are being used in other settings.

             Today, most solar panels have a pretty conspicuous look, and they don’t just naturally blend into their surroundings or the architecture they’re attached to. But there’s only so much you can do about that because the most common solar panels are made of silicon, which is just naturally bulky and heavy. Silicon is great for turning light energy into electricity since its electrons are arranged in a way that makes it easy for sunlight to knock them loose. But it’s not the only option.

               Some engineers are exploring alternatives, including solar cells that could be embedded right in your windows. Like, the idea is that you could be sitting by a window on a sunny day, and there’s light and warmth hitting you.

                But some of that sunlight could also be converted into electrical energy… right in the glass. But for that to happen, solar cells would need to be made of something way lighter than silicon and also something partially transparent.

             Scientists actually found a way to do that by developing a new type of solar cell made of organic compounds. These organic solar cells are made of thin layers of materials like polymers and dyes that absorb light and turn it into electricity, a lot like silicon solar cells.

             But they can be made by printing the dyes onto thin materials, like rolls of plastic or glass, in the case of windows.

                 Now, by definition, a material that’s absorbing light is usually pretty opaque, but organic solar cells can be designed to absorb mainly infrared light, letting visible light pass through.

                    So, these days, organic solar cells are fairly transparent. They let through about 43 percent of light which is pretty dark compared to the windows in your home, but they could make a nice tinted window for an office building.

    What’s great is that cells like these are cheaper and easier to produce than silicon cells, and since they’re so lightweight, they could eventually be adapted for phone screens, camping equipment, or car roofs.

               There is a small catch: They’re not nearly as efficient as silicon. They only convert about 13 percent of the Sun’s energy into electricity, whereas silicon cells typically harness about 18 to 22 percent. Still, the fact that they’re so easy to apply means they could be installed in a greater number of places Including places that don’t currently generate any electricity.

            In the future, buildings might not be the only things decked out in solar cells because now, researchers are working on solar fabrics, textiles that would have solar cells integrate into the fibers.

         The end goal is to generate electricity just by walking outside. One method researchers are experimenting with is creating super tiny solar panels that can be embedded into fabric.

               In 2018, researchers in the U.K. created solar cells measuring 3 millimetres by 1.5 millimetres, basically the size of a flea. Then, the tiny panels were embedded into yarn that was woven into clothing.

                   The idea was for the panels to be small enough that the person wearing the clothing shouldn’t feel them.

           To test their invention, the researchers embedded 200 cells in a prototype and they were able to generate enough energy to charge a Fitbit.

          So we’re not talking like a huge amount of energy here, but with just 2000 cells, you could hook up your Smartphone with a wire and make enough electricity to charge it.

              Believe it or not, the design is actually pretty subtle, too. Other fashion designers have incorporated solar panels into fabric in the past, but they’re usually pretty noticeable. Which tends to turn people off?

        Unless you want to put on like a cool mask and really awesome jeans and then like roller blade like it’s cyberpunk times. Not all solar fabric has to be wearable, though.

          Other companies have successfully embedded solar cells into heavy textiles used for things like awnings and canopies, which have the benefit of actually sitting out in the sun all day long too.

           Finally, most recent inventions related to solar energy have focused on creating electrical energy, but some researchers have taken a different approach. They’re focusing on using the Sun’s energy for thermal power, the kind of thing that heats our homes.

      The goal is to create a rechargeable battery made of chemicals called solar thermal fuels. Solar thermal fuels absorb the Sun’s energy, store it in chemical bonds, and then release it as heat at a later time.

        They can do that on command. When these fuels absorb sunlight, that new energy disrupts the chemical bonds in the molecules and causes them to rearrange into a new configuration.

         Now it always takes energy for molecules to form chemical bonds with each other, and this new configuration takes more energy so it traps all the energy the fuel has absorbed from the Sun, and just holds onto it.

             Like, researchers in Sweden developed a fuel that can store solar energy for nearly two decades. But, as soon as you want that energy back, you can pass those molecules through a physical filter that acts as a catalyst to rearrange those molecules back into their original configuration and release all that pent up energy as heat.

           In fact, the team in Sweden got the fuel to bump the temperature of its immediate surroundings by 63 degrees in just a few minutes. And the team is hoping to get that number even higher.

       So the idea is to develop a fuel that can release enough energy to heat a home. And if the technology can get there, it sounds like a pretty great deal:

              The fuel would start on the roof of your home, where it would absorb sunlight. Then, when it was time to turn on the heat, the fuel would pass through that filter, and the molecules would release all the heat they’d stored. The whole process is emissions-free and the fuel can be reused over and over.

               These days, solar technology is about way more than just solar panels, and while these inventions take time to develop and make their way into our lives, they show a lot of promise for a solar-powered future.