Solar panels and solar energy.

Project background, objectives and current status

My project is about solar power and solar energy, concentrating on solar panels containing photovoltaic cells. I have done a lot of background research on my project, finding out information about the solar panels, from the price to the efficiency of the photovoltaic cells. I have also researched things such as the amount of energy needed for a house to function as well as the total amount of energy used by the world as a whole. My objectives for this project are to realise the possibilities and restrictions within this sustainable technology. I also intended to find out whether a family could live purely on renewable technology such as solar power.

Solar energy as a whole is not a widely used sustainable technology as of yet, only 0.2% of energy used around the world is from solar power. The main reason why I was interested in researching this technology in particular was because of the huge amount of advantages.
The main advantage of solar energy is that it is one hundred percent renewable; the sun will always exist, and if the sun ever ceases to exist so will we.

Another big advantage is that solar energy does not create any harmful gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide or mercury which would be released into the atmosphere from using energy sources such as oil, coal and gas. The reason why the gases are so bad for the atmosphere is because they cause the ozone to breakdown. This is a big problem because as the ozone in our atmosphere decreases our protection from the sun also decreases, this causes global warming which is directly linked to climate change, floods, drought and other “natural” disasters.

One of the biggest advantages is that the energy that comes from the sun is free and in no way scarce. In 2004 it was found out that during one year the sun gives off 89000 terawatts of energy, a terawatt is 10^12 watts. The amount of energy that the earth uses throughout that time is close to only 15 terawatts. This means the sun gives off 5933 times the amount of energy we need each year. This fact would only be true if we had no atmosphere or clouds, and the photovoltaic cells which are in solar panels were 100% efficient. On average the atmosphere and clouds reflect and absorb 50% of the suns raise, we have another problem with the photovoltaic cells; a normal, readily available solar panel only has 12.5% efficiency due to absorption and reflection once again. If we take all of the above into consideration, we would still get close to 5562 terawatts of energy from the sun each year, this equates to 370 times the amount that we need.

There are quite a view disadvantages that lets solar energy down, for example energy is only produced during the daytime or when there is light hitting the panels, this means that in an average year only 50% of the time you can get a good source of energy. This isn’t great because a lot more energy is used in a house of a night, for example lights to see and heating because it is colder at night. These problems can be overcome by using batteries that can be charged during the day and used at night.

Another big disadvantage is that the amount of energy produced is affected by the amount of pollution and cloud where the solar panels are. This means that if you live near a big city such as London you will not get as much energy as those who live in the country side.

Primary sustainable technology objectives or issues

I researched about a family who wished to survive purely on renewable sources. Their first step towards this was to cover the south side of their roof with solar panels. This actually produced enough energy for them to live off and to even sell off excess power to their electricity provider. Here is a list of 10 month results in 2006-2007.

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An average household consumes 3300 to 4900 kWh per annum. If the house above produced an average of at least 300 kWh per month for the two sunniest months, the yearly amount produced would be 3079. This is enough for a family to survive on especially if they are energy savers. The family are looking to bring their energy consumption to between 2500 and 2900 in 2008; this will make them totally self- sufficient in electricity

Discuss the potential political and financial effects of the project.

Solar panels for personal use on houses don’t really effect or create any political views; the only thing that could affect people’s political views is a financial one. If you are thinking about getting solar panels put into your home then people can apply for a grant, this grant can pay from 10% to 50% of the final costs of the installation. Some people may see this as being a good thing, creating opportunities for more people to depend less on the main grid, but also these grants can be up to and over £8000. This may be a problem because some people may see solar power as a poor source of energy and a big waste of money. If hundreds of people applied for this grant then the money needed to pay the grants could be used elsewhere on a larger more efficient project to save energy.

The financial effects of this project on an individual can be great; the initial investment into solar panels for your home can cost £4000 to £16000 for an average size house. For most working or middle class people this is unaffordable as a one off payment or even when paying in instalments. Another financial effect is the payback period, if you where to pay £16000 for your system the payback period could be up to 14 years. Although this is a long period, once you reach that point you will be able to get free electricity, and sell the extra electricity back to your supplier.
Most suppliers will pay close to 5p per kWh produced and sent, if you were to sell them 3000kwh you would get close to £140 for a year. This is what happened in the house that I researched, all the energy they weren’t using they were sending to the suppliers and were getting paid for every kWh. The family started to use other renewable sources of energy to make more energy that they could sell. They installed wind turbines and reinsulated their house so that no energy was lost through heat.

The potential effects that this project may have for sustainable development from a national or global perspective.

I believe that this project isn’t seen as a global benefactor nor national but I do feel that we could learn from this family. As I have shown above in this report, it is possible to live off of natural occurring renewable resources such as solar energy and wind power. I feel this should be taken into consideration when creating new properties over the UK or even the world, where members of the public can afford it.

At the moment, in the UK, the housing prices are close to the highest they have ever been, with a small decrease over 2007, the average price of a house in the UK is £183,000. If there was a law or legislation passed that said that each new property that would be built would have to have solar panels put on the property, the dependence on the main grid would decrease. Doing this would also raise awareness about how we must change to renewable sources of energy to survive before it’s too late. Many people are starting to understand the need for renewable energy, having solar panels on your property will actually increase the value of your property. Obviously if the law or legislation was passed there would be uproar but it would become an everyday thing as time goes by like smoking in public places. Obviously the government and building companies look for the cheapest and most effective way to create buildings, if a rule like this was about then the demand for solar panels would increase, faster production leading to cheaper panels and as well as that more research into making photovoltaic cells have a higher efficiency.

My final point is about the national grid. They are now saying that some energy saving/creating projects will not be able to go through because, at the moment, the national grid isn’t large enough to take all of the power. It is also said that because of all the property renovation and all the new high-tech gadgets and appliances we use in everyday life the energy consumption in the UK has reached a high, so they are intending to extend the main grid to cope with this. If solar panels were cheaper and more readily available we would not all be taking energy from the main grid, we would be giving it back instead. If the main grid was to be extended it would cost the government millions of pounds, if solar panels where cheaper and more people had them, they wouldn’t need to spend the money extend.

Conclusion

In conclusion I feel that solar panels are very expensive and not efficient enough for everyone to get them yet, but I do believe that more research needs to be down to decrease the price of the panels and increase the efficiency of the photovoltaic cells. The reason why I feel so strongly about this sustainable technology is because of the facts, it’s totally clean and beneficial to the environment and atmosphere, and it’s totally free and always readily available. My main point is even with only a 12.5% efficiency in photovoltaic cells we could still have over 370 times the amount of energy we need for the whole world to run smoothly.