About Solar Energy : Is Solar an Energy for the Future?
The sun is a great source of energy because it's renewable and readily available.
New technological developments increase reliance on solar energy by reducing upfront costs and increase solar structural efficiency.
- So, Why is Solar Energy The Way of The Future?
- Build and rebuild using solar solutions
- Solar Can Be Used By Anyone, Anywhere
- Save More Money on Solar Energy
- Solar Energy Helps Save The Environment
- Solar Energy Promotes Better Health
- Solar Energy Will Be a Great Investment
- Opportunities For Landowners and Developers
- Development of Floating Solar Farms
- Development of Multi-Junction Cells
- Development of Perovskites
- Versatile Installation
- Addressing Energy Storage Problems
- Is Solar an Energy for the Future Conclusion
Compared to the past, solar cells' costs that convert light energy into electricity are now more affordable.
More companies produce a high volume of solar cells, and installation is easier with new innovative solar panel designs.
The world only gets about 1% of its energy resources from solar; however, it is entirely feasible that in the next 30 years this percentage could skyrocket to as high as 27%.
At 27%, solar energy systems such as solar farms and concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants would become the world's most valuable energy resource, generating more energy than fossil fuels, wind, or hydroelectric systems, as well as reducing carbon emissions by 6 billion tons per year.
So, Why is Solar Energy The Way of The Future?
• Build and rebuild using Solar solution
• Can be used by anyone, anywhere
• Save more money on solar energy
• solar energy helps to save the environment
• solar energy Promotes better health
• Solar will be a great investment
• Opportunity for Landowners and developers
• Development of Floating Solar farms
• Development of multi-junction Cells
• Development of Perovskites
• Versatile Installation
• Addressing Energy Storage Problems
• Conclusion
Build and rebuild using solar solutions
Construction companies understand the importance of keeping up with technological innovations, such as offering and using solar solutions to clients.
The use of renewable energy allows construction companies to utilize fewer fossil fuels.
Also, solar energy can run construction tools and machinery, which saves money on oil and gasoline.
Thus, if you're running a construction company, offering solar solutions has the potential of attracting more homeowners and commercial property owners to work with you, thereby increasing your construction leads.
But if you want to get the most out of exclusive and qualified leads from adapting solar solutions, working with a lead generation company can be beneficial.
If you haven't hired the right company yet, you better find more information to get started with the hiring process.
Solar Can Be Used By Anyone, Anywhere
Solar can be considered the way of the future due to its versatility.
This means that wherever people choose to live their lives, solar energy will always be there to help.
For example, for those who are living in a place with no form of electricity, such as in rural communities, using solar panels can bring renewable energy to them without hassle.
In other words, people can rely on the sun for energy.
Unlike fossil fuels, sunlight can be a guaranteed resource of energy.
in areas where solar isn't thought to be a potential source of energy, solar can still provide you with the electricity that you need.
What's also good is that solar panels can work during the winter and in colder climates.
Save More Money on Solar Energy
Because of economic turmoil, more people are finding ways to save money.
Installing solar energy significantly contributes to saving money since it helps reduce electricity bills, net metering programs, and federal solar tax credit.
Here are the details on how people can save more money on solar energy in the future:
Lower Electricity Bills: A home solar energy converts power from the sun, possibly eliminating monthly electric bills.
If the capacity of a Solar Power plant is exceeding your running load then you can feed this excess Energy to the grid so that you can earn money on your Investment.
Solar Rebate Programs: These rebate programs work like consumer purchase rebates.
Receive cashback ranging between 5% to 20% and even more when you mail in the rebate form of your newly purchased PV (Photovoltaic) system.
Net Metering Programs: A net metering program enables homeowners to sell excess solar electricity to their local utility company and earn credits.
Now, households can receive zero charge or negative electricity bills monthly.
Also, net metering removes the need to pay battery storage for solar installation.
Solar Feed-in Tariff: Solar allows monetization of solar electricity by selling Solar Power above-market rates and obtain cash or credits.
At the moment, this solar incentive is only available in some states.
Federal Tax Credit: Taxpayers can claim a federal solar energy tax credit on their income taxes for up to 30% of the cost of installing a solar PV system.
For instance, if your PV system costs USD 12,000, it'll reduce your tax liability by USD 3,600.
This amount reduces the upfront cost of a PV installation, speeding up the payback period of Solar Energy investment
Solar Energy Helps Save The Environment
Typically, the traditional production of electricity isn't a great process.
The burning of coal, oil, and gas can be very harmful to the environment.
For example, a portion of the electricity production comes with excessive carbon dioxide emissions, the extraction of fossil fuels in the ground contributes to pollution and climate change, and its massive use of water supply may also cause environmental problems around the world.
Considering these issues, it can be safe to say that using renewable energy sources may help save the environment.
Solar energy creates pure, clean, and renewable power from the sun, a perfect alternative to fossil fuels, such as natural gas and coal.
It also reduces carbon footprint and greenhouse gases worldwide.
Lastly, once the solar panels are installed, the production of electricity will be emission-free and require a little amount of water.
Solar Energy Promotes Better Health
One of the benefits of using solar energy is fewer air pollutants.
It significantly reduces sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, particulate matter emissions, and other harmful substances that cause health problems-utilizing Solar Power results in fewer respiratory problems, like bronchitis and asthma, and cardiovascular problems.
Also, it reduced lost workdays associated with health issues.
Solar energy reduces emissions of dangerous air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, mercury, and particulate matter that harm public health.
Solar energy production can reduce emissions beyond the level required by environmental regulations, or address environmental and public health threats that are inadequately regulated, providing value such as reduced illness and mortality.
According to a 2018 report, 41 percent of the world lives in a county where air pollution often reaches dangerous levels.
Air pollution is linked to increased incidence of asthma and chronic bronchitis and has also been shown to cause hundreds of thousands of premature deaths per year.
A typical coal-fired power plant without technology to limit emissions sends 170 pounds of mercury - an extremely harmful neurological toxin - into the air each year.
Expanding the nation's ability to source clean electricity from the sun reduces our dependence on fossil fuels, and lessens the number of harmful emissions that flow into the air we breathe.
The air and water pollution emitted by coal and natural gas plants are linked with breathing problems, neurological damage, heart attacks, cancer, premature death, and a host of other serious problems.
Pollution affects everyone.
One Harvard University study estimated the life cycle costs and public health effects of coal to be an estimated $74.6 billion every year.
That's equivalent to 4.36 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced-about one-third of the average electricity rate for a typical home.
Most of these negative health impacts come from air and water pollution that clean energy technologies simply don't produce.
Wind, solar, and hydroelectric systems generate electricity with no associated air pollution emissions.
Geothermal and biomass systems emit some air pollutants, though total air emissions are generally much lower than those of coal- and natural gas-fired power plants.
Solar Energy Will Be a Great Investment
The world needs solar energy in the post-pandemic world.
Arab countries and others see them as a long-term energy solution.
Solar energy is the cheapest form of power, especially in sunny regions.
It's no wonder why many people find solar energy plant investments attractive, rapidly multiplying worldwide because of above-average returns.
In the future, solar energy will undergo an amazing transformation, like telecommunications with flat call rates.
This is because more people will enjoy cheaper utility bills and more savings from using solar energy.
Opportunities For Landowners and Developers
As demand for new solar installations continues to rise, landowners and developers have many more opportunities for generating additional income than ever before for landowners who own considerable amounts of property, it is not out of the realm of possibility to be approached by a solar developer looking to enter into some sort of solar lease agreement.
Such an agreement would grant the developer the necessary rights to construct a solar installation on the property, and in exchange, the landowner would receive a monthly rental fee.
Depending on varying circumstances, this rental fee can be quite substantial, equating to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual rental payments.
And, because of the increased efficiency of solar panels and falling prices of various solar technologies, developers are seeing a faster return on their investment than ever before, making solar energy a very lucrative financial asset.
Development of Floating Solar Farms
If you were asked to describe the location of a typical solar installation, you would probably describe a rooftop of some sort, or maybe a cornfield in the Midwest that has been converted into a modern-day solar farm.
What probably doesn't come to mind is a whole bunch of panels floating in the ocean; however, in China, that's exactly what's happening.
In June of 2017, China flipped the switch on the world's largest floating solar farm, capable of producing 40 megawatts of power and powering up to 15,000 homes.
While it seems like an odd idea, building a solar farm in this manner allows the panels to be cooled by the ocean water, while at the same time, protecting existing land-based agricultural and terrestrial ecosystems from re-development
This sort of solar installation would be especially beneficial for smaller nations that lack adequate land for the large, utility-scale solar farms, as they could now turn to the open ocean for their energy production needs.
Development of Multi-Junction Cells
While the industry waits for silicon alternatives, solar developers are pursuing other methods of increasing panel efficiency, one of which is the creation of multi-junction cells.
Multi-junction cells are essentially regular PV panels but with added layers to increase efficiency.
Each layer of a multi-junction cell is optimized to a particular wavelength, effectively increasing the efficiency of the panel to rates as high as 40%.
When these multi-junction cells are used in an array, the amount of total electricity that can be generated from them (compared to traditional panels) increases exponentially.
However, the extra materials and engineering required to bring these panels to operating capacity mean that they are far more expensive than traditional panels.
Because of this price difference, and depending on the location, solar developers still may opt to use traditional solar panels instead.
Be it atop a parking structure or along the freeway on the way to the world, solar installations are becoming more and more common every day.
Advancements in solar energy technologies have opened the door to a variety of different implementation scenarios, and below are a couple of the most interesting developments we've seen thus far.
Development of Perovskites
Since the creation of the first solar panels in 1954, silicon has been the primary material used in solar cells.
However, since silicon panels are intrinsically inefficient at creating usable energy, researchers have been looking into alternative materials, like Perovskites, to replace current silicon technology.
Modern-day solar panels have a maximum efficiency of about 33%, meaning that much of the sun's solar radiation goes to waste even under the most ideal circumstances.
This is a major obstacle that solar energy systems must overcome to achieve exponential growth in the energy industry.
Because of this inefficiency, the solar industry is investing heavily in finding new ways of improving the efficiency of solar energy systems, with 3 of the biggest developments being in solar energy storage, Perovskites, and multi-junction cells.
Perovskites (CaTIO3) is a naturally occurring mineral that displays a wide variety of useful properties, the most important one of which is superconductivity.
Interestingly, the term "perovskites" also refers to a family of synthetic materials created to mimic the orthorhombic crystal structure found in the naturally occurring mineral, and because Perovskites can be synthetically produced, they hold the potential to be both cheaper to produce and easier to work with than silicon.
In the past 7 years alone, solar cells created with Perovskites have gone from an efficiency rating of just 3.8% to 20.1%.
This rate of progress is promising to researchers and developers alike, as lowering the cost of solar panels is a key step to achieving exponential growth in the industry.
However, there are some technical hurdles to overcome with panels made out of Perovskites, as Perovskites decompose far too quickly to be implemented in real-world applications.
If this technical hurdle can be solved, and if Perovskites panel efficiency can surpass silicon panel efficiency, then the solar market will undoubtedly make the switch, resulting in even more growth and a greater variety in solar energy production.
Versatile Installation
It is extremely easy and simple to install a solar panel.
This means it can be easily installed in both horizontal and vertical spaces.
Since it uses the energy of the sun; it can even be installed in a remote place where providing electricity would have been difficult.
Addressing Energy Storage Problems
A major obstacle to solar energy production comes in the form of solar energy storage.
Solar energy storage is crucial to the success of Future Energy systems because, without it, any excess electricity that is generated throughout the day cannot be utilized at a later time when sunlight isn't as plentiful (like at night).
Energy storage allows solar energy plants to store excess energy so that it can be sold and used at a later time for a variety of reasons, including load levelling, emergency preparedness, and grid stabilization.
While these solar battery storage systems seem like a no-brainer, there is still much work to be done in bringing down the costs of these systems as they primarily consist of expensive lithium-ion batteries.
As costs go down and efficiency goes up, we should start to see battery storage installations become more commonplace in the future.
Is Solar an Energy for the Future Conclusion
We've just covered the important benefits of installing solar energy, a home solar energy can help homeowners save more money with lower utility bills and incentives.
Solar energy is a worthwhile investment not only for homeowners but also for investors and businesses.
Like construction companies, businesses can use solar energy to power up tools and machinery to reduce operating costs.
Using solar energy helps save the environment by reducing gas emissions and reducing carbon footprint.
Also, it promotes better health because of fewer air contaminants produced.
It can be a versatile source of energy wherever you are in the world and indeed, solar has a bright future with plenty of promising benefits to humanity.