Some Interesting Solar Energy Facts

There are several solar energy facts that you may have heard of before. But since I was talking about the various advantages of solar energy, I thought I might also write an article about different facts about solar energy. Hopefully, this article will help you decide as to whether or not you should get and install solar panels of your own in your house.

What is Solar Energy basically used for?

• Solar Energy has a broad range of applications. People have been using solar energy for a long time now. For Example, people have been using the sun to dry their wet clothes. But once the 80's and 90's came about, there was large scale improvement, advancement and research that helped in the invention of photovoltaic cell and other similar solar energy utilizing equipment that literally changed the whole industry and revolutionized the industry and set it up as the industry of the future.
• Another important application and one very commonly used is for the swimming pool. Since most people swim in outdoor swimming pools when the sun is shining brightly outside, it can be used for heating it up.
• Another place where it can be used is for small gadgets such as calculators and watches etc. Instead of using the regular battery, it can be solar powered.
• Solar cookers are another very commonly used appliances.

Units used to measure

• Solar Energy is measured in the units of kilowatt-hour.
• The basic unit for energy is Joule. However, for all practical purposes, kilowatt-hour would be a much better option to measure solar energy since joule is too small a unit.
• To understand how much 1 kilowatt hour is, think of a 100 watt appliance which is used for 10 hours. That would be how much energy a 1 kilowatt-hour solar panel would produce.
• According to US Energy Information Administration's Statistics, "in 2008, the annual energy consumption by an average American household was 11,040kWh which is approximately 920kWh every month. Tennessee had the highest annual consumption at 15,624 kWh and Maine the lowest at 6,252 kWh."

Other Interesting Facts:

• A solar panel that is set up at home consists of the same things that most traditional sources of power use. Things such as transformers, generators and other similar electrical tools are used.
• Many people want to know how much a solar panel costs and how to install one of those on their rooftops. You should remember that it should not take a long to recover the costs that you initially invested in in terms of savings in the next couple of years or maybe, if used efficiently, months later.
• You could think of an area of around 1000 square feet to set up a 10 kilowatt-hour solar panel. That would be around 30 feet by 30 feet of rooftop space.
• It does not depend what the location of the sun is as you can use mirrors innovatively to overcome this.
• Unlike most other things that you buy, you can get warranty rates of almost 20 years for individual solar panels and around 5 years for the whole set up.

Information about our Sun:

• Our sun is located at an optimum distance from the earth and it is almost the perfect position for life to be possible on Earth. It is because of the sun that even renewable sources of energy can be used today. This is because of life that existed millions of years ago which was again because of the earth.
• Sun rays reach earth in an approximate time of 8 minutes.
• There is enough energy received by the earth from the sun in an hour to support the whole world's energy needs for an year if used efficiently.

Other Miscellaneous Solar Power and Solar Energy facts

• Thousands of years ago, Indian astronomers and other more recently, scientists like Galilleo and Da Vinci have been studying the sun and have predicted the solar energy industry to boom in the coming years which has now turned out to be true.
• Various solar powered aircraft and vehicles have been known to travel great distances without any fuel whatsoever.
• Solar flares which come because of the sun spots heavily influence long distance communication on the earth and radio waves depend on this.

Since it has been predicted that non renewable sources of energy will last for not long into the next century, solar energy facts and advantages just became more important than ever.

About this Author

Andy Jerald is devoted to helping to save the environment and control pollution by using the renewable sources of energy. He generates his own electricity with the help of solar energy at his house. He blogs about his projects. Check it out at Solar Energy Facts. Also check out a related blog post at Solar Energy Facts.

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