Solar energy....?

Question

i dont know if there even is a answer to this or not.. but to power solar energy do you need another energy source to run along with it to allow solar energy to work? I read this somewhere today online.. but im not sure where.. so i was wondering if it was correct or not..

Answer 1

Solar cells convert sun light directly to electricity it doesn't need more power to do anything, what it does need is storage (batteries or fuel cell) to store the energy, unless it is going to be used immediately. You do need a regulator as the voltage from cells tends to fluctuate with the amount of light/cloud cover.

A number of new types are set to improve the uses of solar cell considerably, from Europe and Australia, flexible cells which will contour to different shapes like car roofs and even cloths, and sliver cells made from slivers of silicon which will be much cheaper to produce.

Answer 2

No. Solar energy IS the source. You don't need anything else unless you want to have power at night.

Answer 3

All you need is a sunny day! I have solar panel heating for my pool. It sits on the roof takes in all the heat from the sun and then runs down a tube from the roof to the pool with the newly heated water. It gets really hot to, on some days my pool is up to 105F

Answer 4

I wouldn't rely on solar pannels any time soon because if you actually know how they work then you might doubt their working life. Solar pannels have silicon disks in them and a wire running in between those disks, the suns rays knock off electrons in those disks and the electrons are picked up by the wire. Now if that is true then those silicon disks have a very limited supply of electrons.

Answer 5

Solar energy powers itself if all panels in series are illuminated.

If a panel in series is not being illuminated, battery power can be supplied to that panel, provided the panel was built with that strategy in mind. Most panels are not so designed, so all panels in series must be in the sun or we get no power.

The strategy has become widespread to avoid using a lot of series connections... limiting voltages to 12 or 24, with a lot of parallel connections.

Answer 6

I don't think it does.  Because you could run a whole house on solar energy I think, so you wouldn't need anything.

So my answer is, no, it works on itself.  Maybe a little battery inside to start it up and then it runs on itself.