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Solar energy is the energy that reaches the earth from the sun, and
given the geological life span of the sun the energy is essentially
available for the capture and use by humanity for a very long time.
The reactions and geologic process resulting in the generation of the energy is
well-established science. The energy is of two forms:
Visible Electromagnetic Radiation, and Thermal Electromagnetic
Radiation. Therefore the capture of the energy can be
of only the visible energy or of only the thermal energy.
Preferentially, however,
an efficacious capture for use for the purposes of everyday needs,
should entail the simultaneous capture of both components of the
solar energy.
Irrespective of the component energy
target for capture, the Energy Capture Process can be either purely
machine process or a chemical process or a combination of both. A
thorough analysis of the Capture Process therefore should be
evolved from a comprehensive capture components analysis. The
essential infrastructure of
any Solar-Energy Capture Process consists of three
component-technologies:
- The Energy Collector,
- Storage Potential
Generation System,
- Energy Storage System
Operationally, the Energy
Collector collects the Solar energy, be it the optical energy or
the thermal energy; the Storage Potential Generation System
processes the energy into a form of energy-potential suitable for
storage; and the Energy Storage Systems then store the energy for
on demand retrieval in the future.
Generally, however, the
Energy Collector may be simply a converter of the solar
electromagnetic energy or an integrated whole of the converter and
concentrator. The converter often converts the EM Waves into
either electrical energy or thermal energy. The Storage Potential
Generator System is a simple or complex engineering system design to
process the electrical or thermal energy from the collector into a
form that can be stored in the Energy Storage System. In effect, to
a great extent then the Capture Process design is dependent first
and foremost on the form of Energy storage System adopted for use.
Energy Collectors Types
Having being the
subject of study for many years, the form of the Energy Collector
has become quite varied, and also depends on the component of the
energy that is being collected.
The collection of the
optical energy can and is often accomplished with the use of
photoelectric devices which are devices that absorb the visible EM energy and as
a result makes available free
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electrons that are usually organized, with an electromotive force, into a
streaming electric current. However, photovoltaic
devices, a more specialized version of the photoelectric devices,
are more often used in Solar Energy Capture Processes, because these
devices spontaneously organize the electrons displaced from the
crystal lattices by the impinging photon energy of the solar EM Waves into electric currents, thereby eliminating the need for an
external source of electromotive force.
The collection of the thermal energy is
often also accomplished also by one of two means. By one approach,
and preferentially, the collection
of the thermal energy is accomplished with tubes within which are
fluid streaming along the point of focus of the energy. Another less common
approach to capturing the solar thermal energy is the transfer of
the heat into silica materials, preferentially gravel stones, being
the most common silica materials. These materials though poor
conductor of heat absorbs large doses of radiant energy when expose
to intense radiant thermal energy. Naturally
the these materials absorb the radiant heat converting such into
conductive thermal heat, and so suffer high temperatures, which however,
does not drop as rapidly as it rises upon removal of the source of radiant
energy. Rather the heat is discharged very slowly to contiguous
media, thereby enabling the extraction of the thermal energy under
more controlled design applications.
In any event, the
use of concentrators is a very common approach,
because of the need to increase the overall quantity of energy
collected per unit time as compared to the mere quantity available
from the insolation, which is the quantity of energy per unit area
which a specific part of the earth receives.
Optical concentrators
, since from the days
of the Greeks when solar energy was used for warfare, have
usually been mirrors of simple silver-paint layered flat-glass. However, in contrast
to the mirrors of the Greeks, nowadays, the term mirror does not
mean just the simple silver-painted flat-glass; instead by
mirror is meant any material capable of effectively reflecting the
light, hence the nature and constructs of the mirrors of these days
can be as simple and as complex depending on the materials being
used for the production of the mirrors. Thermal energy, just like
the light energy, can also be collected with Thermal concentrators
which in this case are materials capable of simply bouncing off
radiant thermal energy, depending, of course, on the angle of
incidence of the rays of the radiant energy. Often, though these
mirrors are complex metal solution and oxides of metals.
The concentrators, however,
are often assisted with energy Channels:
Light Tubes, and
Thermal
Tubes.
Light Tubes enable
channeling and transmitting of
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the light energy from the concentrator through a
very narrow tube to the converters. Similarly,
Thermal Tubes also
enable the channeling of the radiant energy from the Thermal Mirrors
to the converters.
Light Tubes are also particularly effective in
that it allows for the direct use of the optical energy for
operations, such as Photolytic Chemical Processes, that
require the direct use of photo-energy.
Storage
Potential Generation System
Obviously, the design of this system depend greatly on the component of the solar energy
being captured and the output of the Energy Collector used for the capture. The design of these systems
is where the role of creativity comes most into the capture process.
The possible designs are potentially as varied as the situation that
presents itself. In any case, the object
of the design is the extraction of the energy as electricity
possibly for storage in Large Scale Capacitors Banks.
By the given default
storage system, the design of this system for the electric current
output of the optical collectors would be the electrical system
which processes the current into a form that can be stored with
minimal of loses. This design can be quite varied, but nonetheless
must be an electrical system, and hence lead strictly to machine
process.
The design for the
processing of the output of the thermal collector depends on whether
the collector is water or silica products. However, in each case the collector
output can be converted directly into electricity by adoption of
thermoelectric devices or indirectly by first converting into the
mechanical potential and then into electrical through the adoption
of electromagnetic devices such as turbines. the latter is the more
often standard approach. each one has its advantages and
disadvantages.
Energy Storage Systems
The hydrogen and High Voltage Capacitor Storage Designs are
often the two common types of Energy Storage Systems suggested for
the Solar energy processes design. The use of the energy to generate
hydrogen, with the object of recovering the energy through the
combustion of hydrogen in the future, is quite energy inefficient
because of the large irreversibilities inherent in such processes,
as electrolysis, for such purposes. In effect, the
latter provides a more energy efficient option.
Designs Optimization
Designing a Solar Energy Capture Process
based on the available body of knowledge suggests certain rationale
as a prime approach:
The use of a
multi-function
collector or collector-design with the ability to separate out the
two components of the solar energy; the use of well-engineered
thermoelectric devices for the Storage Potential Generator System,
and the use of Large Array Capacitors for the storage of the
electricity.
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