How a solar panel works is pretty basic. The photovoltaic cells on the solar panel absorb some of the light’s energy into their semiconductor material. When this occurs, electrons are knocked loose and are forced to flow in one direction by a diode. This electron flow is what’s known as current. This current plus the cells’ voltage equal the wattage the cells can produce. But most of us know that there is a difference in what can be produced and what the actual output is.
To get maximum output from your solar panel array, you must give your panels the maximum input of light. In the northern hemisphere, you want your solar panels facing south at a degree to where the panels are perpendicular to the sun. The exact angle of the tilt of your panels will depend on your latitude and the season. You can adjust them to suit each season, or leave them in their winter position to get the most output when you have the least input.
Solar panels have improved in many ways. They are smaller and more inexpensive than their predecessors. Some are portable and great for camping, some mimic shutters for a more visually appealing way to supplement your home’s energy use. Some have more than one semiconductor material to capture more of the spectrum of wavelengths from the sun. These are called multi-junction cells and will probably include some form of silicon plus gallium arsenide, copper indium diselenide, or cadmium telluride. This is the basic technology currently available for household use. But new photovoltaic technology is on its way.
This new technology allows the semiconducting material(s) to be printed directly onto aluminum foil like a newspaper. It is currently being developed for and used by large power plants. Since this technology is being produced by a privately held company called Nanosolar, we don’t know exactly how it works or what material it uses. So we can only speculate how close this film works to how a solar panel works that uses existing technology
While it is currently only cost-effective on an industrial scale, this new “film” technology is bringing us one step closer to solar technology that will be cheap enough to use in urban areas. Current technology can be installed for about nine dollars a peak watt. New technology promises to bring that number down to one to three dollars a peak watt, but that drop in cost is not going to happen overnight
As coal energy prices keep increasing and solar energy prices keep decreasing, more and more of us will be wondering how a solar panel works and if solar power can work for us. Sooner or later, solar power is going to be a good choice for most of us. Will we still be looking at the space on our roof, or will we just wrap our house in foil? The technology that greets us will probably lie somewhere in between.
