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Wednesday, May 16, 2012

How do Photovoltaic Work?

By Christopher Eyres


Photovoltaic is the direct conversion of light into electricity at the atomic level. Some materials exhibit a property called the photoelectric effect that leads them to absorb photons of light and release electrons. When these free electrons are caught, an electrical current is resulted that can be used as electricity.

The photoelectric effect was first noted by a French physicist, Edmund Bequerel, in 1839, who discovered that certain materials would produce small amounts of electric current when exposed to light. In 1905, Albert Einstein described the character of light and the photoelectric effect on which photovoltaic technology is based, for which he later won a Nobel prize in physics. The first photovoltaic module was built by Bell Laboratories in 1954. It was billed as a solar battery and was often just a curiosity as it was too expensive to gain widespread use.

In the 1960s, the space industry began to make the first heavy utilisation of the technology to provide power aboard spacecraft. Thru the space programs, the technology advanced, its trustworthiness was established, and the cost began to decline. During the power crisis in the 1970s, photovoltaic technology gained recognition as a good sources of power for non-space applications.

Photovoltaic power cells are made from the same kinds of semiconductor materials,eg silicon, employed in the microelectronics industry. For solar power cells, a thin semiconductor wafer is specifically treated to form an electrical field, positive on one side and negative on the other. When light energy strikes the solar power cell, electrons are knocked loose from the atoms in the semiconductor material. If electrical conductors are attached to the negative and positive sides, forming an electric circuit, the electrons can be captured in the form of an electric current -- that is, electricity. This electricity can then be used to power a load, such as a light or a tool.

Numerous photovoltaic cells electrically connected to one another and mounted in a support structure or frame is known as a photovoltaic module. Modules are designed to supply electricity at a certain voltage, such as a typical 12 volts system. The prevailing produced is explicitly dependent on how much light strikes the module.

Multiple modules can be wired together to form an array. Generally, the larger area of a module or array, the more electricity it's going to be produced. Photovoltaic modules and arrays produce direct-current ( dc ) electricity. They can be connected in both series and parallel electric arrangements to produce any needed voltage and current combo.

Today's commonest PV devices use a single junction, or interface, to form an electric field within a semiconductor such as a PV cell. In a single-junction PV cell, only photons whose energy is the same as or larger than the band opening of the cell material can free an electron for an electric circuit. To paraphrase, the photovoltaic reply of single-junction cells is limited to the portion of the suns range whose energy is above the band opening of the absorbing material, and lower-energy photons aren't used.




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