Solar energy - how you can use it to your benefit
What is Solar Energy?
Simply put this is just the 'heat' sent to us by the Sun during the day. This heat is used to add energy to a device or surface to produce a desired result. We are all familar with how tarmac can get really hot during a warm Summers day, this is just exploiting such a heating effect to our benefit rather than discomfort...
There are several main classes of Solar energy usage available around the home..
Solar Panels
This is probably the form of solar energy harvesting you will be most familar with. Everybody has seen solar panels on roofs and in arrays converting the Sun's energy into electricity directly. What most people do not realise is how this is currently a very inefficient process. The best conversion rate achieved so far is around 19%, so around 81% of the Sun's energy is lost or converted into heat.
See our full length article for a more detailed discussion on solar panels
Solar Hot Water
This is where the Sun's energy is used to produce hot water. Either by directly heating the water or heating some form of collector which then heats the water for you. The first type is usually recognised by a simple flat collector with a hot water tank bolted right onto the top of it. This simply uses natural convection through the collector to allow the hot water to 'rise' into the hot water tank. So no real running costs, but their downside is that their ideal 'incidence' to the Sun is fixed, so they can only heat the water upto a certain point and need good solar access. The indirect approach uses a form of dedicated collector, often in a form of glass tube, to collect the solar heat. The advantage with the tube based approach is that the 'incidence' to the Sun is better for longer, so these will heat water when the other system will not.
See our full length article for a more detailed discussion on solar hot water heating.
Passive Solar
This is a solar energy option often overlooked, but is probably the most effective in reducing costs over the long term. Basically with Passive Solar design what you are doing is setting up your home to get maximum benefit from the yearly solar cycle; i.e. use the Sun's heat in winter to provide heating and the Sun's heat in Summer to provide cooling. Yes, you can use the Sun to help cool your home during Summer, that is not a misprint! Passive solar covers techniques like:
- correct placement of windows, their sizing and overhangs/shading required
- usage of Thermal Mass to time shift heating and cooling effects and average them out
- through/cross-ventilation
- landscaping design
- placement of vents, roof design, etc
Some of these techniques you need to do when designing a building, others you can readily apply to any building.
See our full length article for a more detailed discussion of Passive Solar techniques.
Conclusion
We hope this has opened your eyes to ways in which you can use the Sun with your house to reduce your heating and cooling costs; whilst also being more 'friendly' to the environment to boot.
Questions and Answers
Israel has used solar energy to the maximum extent in recent years. About 60% of the Israel is covered with deserts that are called as Negev deserts. To enable these deserts to provide significant amounts of solar derived power in the future, extensive R&D will be required.
Passive solar energy is a resource that does not require machinery. If properly designed, buildings can use daylight year-round to capture the sun's heat in the winter and minimize it in the summer. Buildings designed in such a way utilize passive solar energy to help heat, cool, or light them.
Solar energy Israel has wide range of applications. Solar energy can be utilized in various ways to extract maximum benefits from it. Solar energy Israel is used for passive solar space heating, production of domestic hot water and photovoltaic rural lightning. It has contributed significantly in all these fields.
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