Friday, October 12, 2007

Electricity and common sense

We are about to end our dependence on fossil fuel, beginning with petroleum, and our energy must come from somewhere. One good start are photovoltaics, solar cells.
Solar cells produce electricity, and there are ways we can use them effectively. First of all, solar cells produce electrical power when we need it the most, the middle of the day. Remember, businesses and factories are busiest during the day shift, from early morning until early evening. Producing electricity from 10AM to 2PM helps relieve the pressure on utilities to provide everyone with power.
Second, solar cells can be much more productive by simply reflecting more light on them. For example a 50 watt solar panel will produce almost 100 watts of electricity if the same amount of surface area is reflected on it. Reflecting more light produces more power. How much more? Believe it or not, up to a thousand times! Decades ago a French physicist produced an amazing one thousand times the rated output of a solar cell by reflecting massive amounts of light on it.
As mirrors are much cheaper than solar cells we can easily produce more power.
Third, in the summer time solar cells reduce our demand for air conditioning. Do you know why? Sunlight hitting the solar cell becoming electricity is not converted to heat - if the solar cell were not there, that sunlight would be absorbed by the roof, heating it.