Solar Energy Facts

Solar Energy Facts

There is nothing really all that complicated about taking advantage of the suns energy. With the right knowledge and a few resources you to can utilize this energy to off set the use of nonrenewable resources. In fact you will find that people have been harnessing solar energy for a long time, in many ways.

Solar Energy Facts

1. Solar radiation makes it possible for the energy coming from the sun to be used as a power source and energy that can in turn be used for many purposes. This technology is characterized in two ways. It can either be passive or active. This will depend on the methods that are used to get, convert and allocate sunlight.

What are active solar techniques? These utilize pumps, photo voltaic panels and fans to convert sunlight into useful resources. These aim to increase the energy supply. That is why these techniques can also be referred as supply side technologies. The passive solar techniques, on the other hand, use only selected resources with constructive thermal properties. Utilizing spaces that can circulate air naturally and apply the position of buildings and structures towards the sun lessening the need for other resources. This technique can also be referred to as demand side technology.

2. Solar panels that can power up homes have been made available to not only the general public, but to governments using the innovation to bring electricity to people, in their countries, who still haven’t experienced living in the comfort of having power. As a result, many people have experienced what it is like to have lights. They have also been sold to businesses that can be aided by such technology.

3. The awareness of solar energy, and the knowledge of how it can help us, has influenced many factors that surround us. One factor, in which this knowledge has helped us, is in the planning and designing of buildings. This process of designing with the awareness of the suns energy can be rooted back at the early days of architectural history with the Greeks and the Chinese.

4. Solar energy is also being utilized by the agricultural sector because they rely heavily on its benefits in order to gain more harvest. They developed ways in order to plant the kind of crops that will grow according to the amount of sun that they will be getting for the season. This can also be used to dry the crops, pump water, brooding of chicks and to dry animal manures that can later be used as fertilizers.

5. On seasons like the Little Ice Age, fruit walls were used by French and Chinese farmers to be able to collect and store solar energy to help them keep the plants warm and to speedy up the process of ripening of fruits. These walls serve as the thermal masses. The fruit walls that were first developed were perpendicular to the ground and faced the south direction. Over time, innovations were done and slopping walls were used to gain more advantage from the sun.

6. To convert the solar light into heat, people have developed greenhouses. These enable the production and cultivation of specialty crops all year round. Such innovation made it possible for crops to be produced in untimely seasons and in places where you think that those plants won’t grow.

And these are only a few solar energy facts. They give you a good peek at how wonderful nature is and how people have developed ways to use it to advance many aspects of their lives.

To learn more about Solar Energy Facts, check back with us. Or, to make power at home and eliminate your power bill, get our complete guide on alternative energy.

You can also check out Solar Energy Advantages.