The Development Of Solar Energy

Since the industrial revolution, people’s life quality has improved dramatically, along with new machines invented and new technology innovated. While people are enjoying their life with those advancements, energy consumption has also increased enormously. With limited resources on earth, the development of renewable technology has become the focus for the past decades. The sun, the giant burning star that is 92 million miles away from us, is warming us the earth and providing us with light and energy, helping plants and animals grow, as well as the living of human. Depositing 342 joules of energy per square metre per second, the sun, as many scholars and scientists believe, is an “unlimited” source of energy: the solar energy (International …show more content…
One of the most common features of the solar technology is using the solar panel to generate electricity, which leads to a handful of different applications. First and foremost, residential usage of the solar panel. More and more individuals choose to install solar panels on their roof as a channel for energy. As a clean and environmentally friendly technology, the solar panel can save thousands of dollars annually and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emission or other environmental damages (Schmalensee, et al.). Other than residential installations, the solar panel is also used commercially and publicly. One usage of PV energy is installing solar panels on subways, trains, buses, airplanes, etc. and use the solar energy as a source of power (International Energy Agency 102). Since those transportations are usually outside exposing under the sun, able to transforming those energies into more useful ways rather than heat can help saving energy usage from other sources. Another common use of solar panel is installing onto the street lights. Substituting those traditionally powered street lights with solar lights not only saves energy and money, but also makes the control easier: it can set to turn on when it is not sensing a lot of lights from the solar panel, which means it is turning dark. Since the time for sunset changes accordingly based on the time of the year, by doing such will make the controlling easier: turn on when it is needed. Per statistics, each solar light can provide a saving of $221,000 over a twenty-years period (Solar Energy Industries