Solar panels produce electricity via solar radiation. Together with wind power they are the biggest regenerative energy source worldwide. A solar panel is made of 100 solar modules. A solar module usually consists of 60 solar cells. The solar cells produce electricity through a specific material that can convert sun light into electricity. In most cases this material is silicon.
When sun light hits a solar panel, the energy carriers in light, called photons, remove the electrons from the shell of the silicon atoms. The electrons then move into the direction of the positive electrode located at one side of the solar cell and the positive charged silicon atoms move to the negative charged electrode on the other side. This leads to a positive charged layer and a negative charged layer at either side of the cell. Since silicon is a semi-conductor and the layer in-between the two charged layers is not conductive, neither the electrons nor the positive charged silicon atoms can cross this layer. An excess of electrons on one side and a lack of electrons on the other side of the solar cell results in: electricity being generated.
Solar cells produce direct current. To make it usable for one’s own household or to feed it into the commercial power grid, it needs to be changed to alternate current. Therefore an inverter is installed. The inverter changes the current of the whole system into alternate current. It is also possible to install an inverter after every single solar module. This has the advantage that the modules can act independently and therefore do not influence each other negatively, but it comes with much higher costs.
Ecoenergy uses solar panels in different ways. Our solar panels improve the autonomy of our electric trikes (see e-mobility) and supply us with power at the company headquarters. Also we equip private persons as well as commercial users with solar panels. Here our service can be the simple shipment of the system components as well as the whole installation at our costumer’s property. Often these also wish to produce hot water with regenerative energies. To find further information on this topic please visit our site thermal solar energy.
Solar panel with brand Solarfabrik
300 W, 24 V: 280 US$
Salt water batterys with brand Greenrock
2,4 kWh: 2700 US$
Combined inverter and charge controller with brand Steca
2,4 kW: 1360 US$
5,0 kW: 1680 US$
