What is solar Energy
Solar radiation is light – also known as electromagnetic radiation – that is emitted by the sun. While every location on Earth receives some sunlight over a year, the amount of solar radiation that reaches any one spot on the Earth’s surface varies. Solar technologies capture this radiation and turn it into useful forms of energy.
solar energy, radiation from the Sun capable of producing heat, causing chemical reactions, or generating electricity. The total amount of solar energy incident on Earth is vastly in excess of the world’s current and anticipated energy requirements. If suitably harnessed, this highly diffused source has the potential to satisfy all future energy needs. In the 21st century solar energy is expected to become increasingly attractive as a renewable energy source because of its inexhaustible supply and its nonpolluting character, in stark contrast to the finite fossil fuels coal, petroleum, and natural gas.
The potential for solar energy is enormous, since about 200,000 times the world’s total daily electric-generating capacity is received by Earth every day in the form of solar energy. Unfortunately, though solar energy itself is free, the high cost of its collection, conversion, and storage still limits its exploitation in many places. Solar radiation can be converted either into thermal energy (heat) or into electrical energy, though the former is easier to accomplis
Concentrated solar power plants employ concentrating, or focusing, collectors to concentrate sunlight received from a wide area onto a small blackened receiver, thereby considerably increasing the light’s intensity in order to produce high temperatures. The arrays of carefully aligned mirrors or lenses can focus enough sunlight to heat a target to temperatures of 2,000 °C (3,600 °F) or more. This heat can then be used to operate a boiler, which in turn generates steam for a steam turbine electric generator power plant. For producing steam directly, the movable mirrors can be arranged so as to concentrate large amounts of solar radiation upon blackened pipes through which water is circulated and thereby heated.
Solar radiation may be converted directly into electricity by solar cells ( photovoltaic cells). In such cells, a small electric voltage is generated when light strikes the junction between a metal and a semiconductor (such as silicon) or the junction between two different semiconductors. (See photovoltaic effect.)
This formula is valid only for low to relatively high speeds; for extremely high-speed particles it yields values that are too small. When the speed of an object approaches that of light (3 × 108 metres per second, or 186,000 miles per second), its mass increases, and the laws of relativity must be used. Relativistic kinetic energy is equal to the increase in the mass of a particle over that which it has at rest multiplied by the square of the speed of light.
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