Radiant light and heat from the Sun, harnessed with technology
This article is about radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of technologies. For more detail about the generation of electricity using solar energy, see Solar power. For the academic journal, see Solar Energy (journal).
This article duplicates the scope of other articles, specifically Solar power. Please discuss this issue and help introduce a summary style to the article.(November 2022)
The Sun produces electromagnetic radiation that can be harnessed as useful energy.
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Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar power to generate electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating), and solar architecture.[1][2][3] It is an essential source of renewable energy, and its technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on how they capture and distribute solar energy or convert it into solar power. Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic systems, concentrated solar power, and solar water heating to harness the energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light-dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air.
In 2011, the International Energy Agency said that "the development of affordable, inexhaustible and clean solar energy technologies will have huge longer-term benefits. It will increase countries' energy security through reliance on an indigenous, inexhaustible, and mostly import-independent resource, enhance sustainability, reduce pollution, lower the costs of mitigating global warming .... these advantages are global".[1][4]
^ ab"Solar Energy Perspectives: Executive Summary" (PDF). International Energy Agency. 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 January 2012.
^"Energy". Royal Society of Chemistry. 2 April 2014.
^Maka, Ali O M; Alabid, Jamal M (1 June 2022). "Solar energy technology and its roles in sustainable development". Clean Energy. 6 (3): 476–483. doi:10.1093/ce/zkac023.
^Marques Lameirinhas, Ricardo A.; N Torres, João Paulo; de Melo Cunha, João P. (2022). "A photovoltaic technology review: History, fundamentals and applications". Energies. 15 (5): 1823. doi:10.3390/en15051823.
electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating), and solar architecture. It is an essential source of renewable energy, and its technologies...
for energy storage, a charge controller, interconnection wiring, circuit breakers, fuses, disconnect switches, voltage meters, and optionally a solar tracking...
Solar power, also known as solar electricity, is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or...
Solar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solarenergy to generate thermal energy for use in industry, and in the...
Mainstream renewable energy options include solarenergy, wind power, hydropower, bioenergy and geothermal power. Renewable energy installations can be...
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A solar cell or photovoltaic cell (PV cell) is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by means of the photovoltaic...
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promoters of solar plants. Gujarat Hybrid Renewable Energy Park will generate 30 GWAC power from both solar panels and wind turbines. It will spread over an...
oldest solar power plant in the world is the 354-megawatt (MW) SolarEnergy Generating Systems thermal power plant in California. The Ivanpah Solar Electric...
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significant solar power capacity into their electrical grids to supplement or provide an alternative to conventional energy sources. Solar power plants...
Ramaty High EnergySolar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI, originally High EnergySolar Spectroscopic Imager or HESSI or Explorer 81) was a NASA solar flare observatory...
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Crescent Dunes SolarEnergy Project is a solar thermal power project with an installed capacity of 110 megawatt (MW) and 1.1 gigawatt-hours of energy storage...
the radiant energy emitted into the surrounding environment (joule per square metre, J/m2) during that time period. This integrated solar irradiance is...
people worked in the solar industry and 43 states deployed net metering, where energy utilities bought back excess power generated by solar arrays. Large photovoltaic...
consumption with solar PV. The International Energy Agency expects solar power to become the world's largest source of electricity by 2050, with solar photovoltaics...
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financial closure. Solar accounted for 12.4% (or 28.6 TWh) of Australia's total electrical energy production in 2021. The sudden rise in solar PV installations...
designed to ensure energy extraction at a constant temperature. The sensible heat of molten salt is also used for storing solarenergy at a high temperature...
Solarenergy conversion describes technologies devoted to the transformation of solarenergy to other (useful) forms of energy, including electricity,...
Tesla Energy Operations, Inc. is the clean energy division of Tesla, Inc. that develops, manufactures, sells and installs photovoltaic solarenergy generation...
Timeline of sustainable energy research 2020– documents increases in renewable energy, solarenergy, and nuclear energy, particularly for ways that are...
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