solar power faq

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solar power explanation? photovoltaic cell?

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could somebody please give me a good explanaton of the process illustrated…I need it for a presentation but I don’t really understand the whole charge controller/inverter/battery thing

cheers
also if you can answer that, you probably know the answer to this too. What are current widespread and tested applications of solar power?

thanks

Photovoltaic cells generate DC at a fixed voltage (determined by the materials the photo-cell is made from). The voltage does not depend on the amount of light.

The current available does depend on the amount of light. So you want the battery to hold any extra power the photovoltaic cells generate so that when you need power but there isn’t enough light, there will still be enough power available to you.

Different batteries have different behaviors, but it is very common for battery voltage to vary with the charge and for batteries to be damaged if there is too much charging current.

So the charge controller is there to make sure the battery likes what it sees – the right voltage, not too much current, etc. (In a car, this is called the voltage regulator and is generally simpler.)

But house power is typically 120 Volts A.C., not the lower D.C. voltage that the battery likes from the controller or that it puts out itself.

The inverter takes in D.C. and puts out A.C.

As for the most widespread and tested application of solar power, it is heating water. Solar water heaters have been used by many people all over the world for over 100 years:
http://www.toolbase.org/Technology-Inventory/Plumbing/solar-water-heaters
http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your_home/water_heating/index.cfm/mytopic=12850

Photovoltaics are far more recent. Their most widespread application was for powering small calculators.

As for the best way to use solar power on a large scale, no one really knows, but some still think that is, and are putting their money into, heating water:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6616651.stm