Compelling Fun Facts About Solar Power

Here is a collection of fascinating solar power fun facts. People have used the sun as a heat resource for hundreds of years. It is only with the advancements in technology that have taken place in recent years that have enabled us to finally harness this energy.

Families in ancient Greece constructed their homes to get the most sunlight through the cold winter months. The ancient Greeks believed that the sun was the god Helios and he drove his chariot round the earth up towards the sky in the morning and in the evening back again.

The discovery of the photovoltaic effect is credited to the French physicist Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel in 1839.

In 1921 the Nobel Peace Prize was presented to Albert Einstein for investigations with solar power and photovoltaics.

Back in 1955 The American Solar Energy Society conducted its first conference in Phoenix and attracted the first Russian scientist to the US following the second World War. There is film footage exhibiting early photovoltaics which was specially designed for NASA, solar cookers and solar heating panels.

The first solar flight took place in 1974 in California by an unmanned plane which was developed by two brothers Roland and Bob Boucher.

In 1975 the earliest solar vessel had been crafted in England and in 1996 Kenichi Horie from Japan made the first solar powered crossing of the Pacific Ocean in a catamaran.

The earliest World Solar Challenge was held in 1987. This is a solar-powered car contest covering 3021 km over the Australian outback from Darwin to Adelaide.

Did you know it is actually possible to boost any solar panel productivity by 75% by simply placing a mirror that is roughly twice the size of the panel on the surface in front of the solar panel?

Photo voltaic cells do not need direct sunlight to work - you may still produce some electricity on a cloudy day.

Solar electricity is an eco-friendly, renewable power that does not put out any harmful carbon dioxide or other pollutants. An average home Photovoltaic system could save about 1200kg of CO2 each year which is about 30 tonnes during a lifetime.

You can store the electricity that a solar power system produces in batteries for a cloudy day.

You can sell any excess electricity you generate with your solar power back to the grid and make a little bit of money.

It takes no more than 8 minutes for solar energy to travel from the sun to the the earth.

Around 30% of the radiation we get from the sun at the upper atmosphere is reflected back to space. The remainder is absorbed by the clouds, oceans and land masses on Earth. Yet still even in these types of conditions, the power which our planet gets from just a single hour of sun exposure is the same as the amount of power that humans use within a whole year.

Large scale solar projects which are currently being developed world wide show that sun powered clean energy technology are both attainable and also profitable. Solar power plants produce Megawatts (MW) with one MW being enough energy to supply 1000 households. One of the most significant solar power projects that the world has ever seen is the "Desertec" program to utilize the uninhabitable North African desert for a power grid of concentrated thermal power stations which could supply Europe with just about all of its energy requirements by the year 2050. So much progress within such a short period of time let us see exactly where solar electricity will go from here.

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