Solar Panels, Solar Lights and Solar Products... A New Era 2011

Energy crisis is increasing day by day, increasing the concern of scientists to find more cost effective and energy efficient ways of generating electricity. Scientists are looking for solutions which are low cost as well as capable enough to feed businesses and homes. Then scientists thought of utilizing a source that is present above our heads from around the time when earth was born, that was solar panels

Even though solar light is not new for us and also the energy crisis, but generating electricity through solar panels is relatively new idea. Solar panels also called photovoltaics, which means "light-electricity", is a technology that converts light energy into electricity. They are called "solar" because the source in this technology is sun and astronomers have a name for sun, they call it "sol". Solar panels consist of solar cells. The more light hits a solar cell, the more electricity is generated from solar panels. Solar panels are everywhere. On roofs of our homes, on top of tall buildings, we see cars equipped with small solar panels and now scientists are talking about solar panel highways. As far as the efficiency is concerned, they are only 14% efficient i.e. only convert 14% of light energy into electricity [source: Northwestern University]. Its initial cost is high; however, it is quite cheap in the long run.

Technology is present but people are not aware of it very well. The need is to make people aware of advantages and disadvantages of this technology as deep as possible. Most importantly, the cost to benefit ratio, the thing for which we are concerned at most.