How Can Solar Power Help Conserve Energy

Conserving energy works on two levels. People are conscious that excessive use of traditional energy sources may be a leading contributor to environmental issues such as global warning. Saving energy also saves them money. Utility bills are one of the few items that seems to rise above inflation over the past few years. The reasoning given for this is that the fossil fuels that are used to create household energy resources are harder to find and extract. And the prospect of finding traditional fossil fuels will not get any better in the future, meaning that utility bills will probably continue to rise until alternatives are found. One such alternative is solar power. This article will discuss how can solar power help conserve energy ?

Solar power can create energy using two components of the Sun's energy. These are the heat or thermal energy and light energy.

Mankind has known about using the Sun's heat energy since the dawn of civilization. The Sun was needed to cultivate crops. Foods were dried and preserved using heat from the sun. Mud was hardened to make bricks to build homes. The Sun may have been used to create fires.

Today, the most common application of heat energy in the home is to heat water. Heating water is one of the more heavier users of energy. By imparting some of the Sun's heat into our water resources we can conserve more energy and save money at the same time.

Solar water heating works by pumping water through a solar collector. A solar collector is simply a device that absorbs and retains heat energy from the Sun. When water is passed through the collector it is heated. The heated water is then plumbed into the home and used for whatever purpose it is needed. Solar pre-heated water may not needed to heated by regular water heating such as gas or electricity heaters, thus conserving energy.

The more recent development of using light energy to create electricity is where much of the research and development of solar power seems to be spent these days. Using photovoltaic (PV) cells, arranged in a parallel or serial configuration (the common solar panels that you see on rooftops), photons from sunlight can be converted into direct current (DC).

Direct current can be stored in batteries and used to power many appliances or it can be converted into alternating current, using a power inverter, to provide electricity to the home. The electricity that is created is coming from a free, renewable source of energy and thus conserves the use of fossil fuels. Much of the research into solar power is aimed at making PV cells more efficient so that more electricity can be produced from the sunlight available.

Most PV cells that you see will be in solar panels attached to roofs. This is for single home use but there are also solar power stations being developed. They use a bank of heliostats (mirrored surfaces) that concentrate the Sun's heat energy into one point. It is used to heat water that will turn a turbine that generates electricity. The hopes for these types of power stations are that they will power entire cities one day. The larger the heliostat arrangement the more power can be produced. A current station that is part operational is in Seville, Spain where it is claimed to send power to 6000 homes in the city.

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