What’s the Deal on Solar Panel Technology?

Current technologies focus on two different things to achieve this goal: the first are the materials used to make solar products, the second is increasing energy efficiency in different materials in order to get a better energy output with less materials.

The typical material used in solar panels has been crystalline silicon cut into discs and polished. This method can be costly because the materials used require a lot of manufacturing equipment to procure and extract the necessary amounts. There have been two changes recently involving silicon and solar panels.

The first difference is using multicrystalline silicon as opposed to crystalline silicon. Multicrystalline silicone can be produced in a number of different ways, one of them being by pouring molten into a cast, from there a number of techniques can be used to get a single-crystal silicon material or use fewer resources to get a lower grade but still useful silicon.

When it comes to using silicon for solar energy there also is a new solar panel technology that uses amorphous silicon. Amorphous solids are materials that have atoms that are not in any particular order. They are not formed in crystalline structures, and have structure and bonding issues, but economically they are less expensive.

The advantage of amorphous silicon is that it absorbs solar energy much more efficiently than single crystalline silicon. This means that a micrometer thick layer of amorphous silicon is needed instead of the about centimeter thick single crystalline silicon. This also means that the amorphous silicon can be distributed on a larger range of products and is more flexible than single crystal silicon.

Another arpanelmanual.com which focuses on solar energy. Please visit his web site to learn more about solar panel technology that is making headlines these days is polymer solar panels. Polymers are inexpensive plastics used in the construction of a number of different items today. These are very cheap materials to produce and use. Like amorphous silicon, solar products made with polymer solar cells are very flexible and very thin. The technology used in creating products with polymer solar cells use very similar technology to that used in photographic films.

This means you have a low materials and low production cost as the solar panel technology requires less in manufacture costs. The unfortunate aspect is that polymer solar cells are not as efficient as the more commonly used silicon cells. The technology is advancing in this field to make polymer cells viable, and it is expected within three years to have a comparable production of energy.

With more interest in green products, and renewable energy sources, the technologies used in extracting and constructing solar panels will continue to evolve. With reductions in cost, interest in these products is sure to increase.