What are the materials needed to install a solar panel to create solar energy?

Question

What are the materials needed to install a solar panel to create solar energy?

Answer 1

We harvest or collect solar energy as heat or electricity. Collecting heat can be levels of easy depending on your use; electricity is, I think, always complex and challenging.

The easiest aplication is unpressurized hot water ... think pool heat.  A small pump and a significant length of black plastic tubing in the sun ... and ...solar heat...

For domestic hot water we are dealing with pressurized plumbing, still some copper tubing painted black with your water circulating through it and you get, if the sun is out, heat. Best heat gathering happens if I make a box out of some insulating material around the black copper and cover it with glass. That way the air doesn't carry away the heat.

Commercial hot water panels are available and reasonably priced. Special solar hot water tanks start to get expensive..

Good luck...

Answer 2

Are you going to make solar panels from scratch?  Good luck.

The rest of the answer depends on your application.  For example, if you are going to use the power right away, then you hook it up to your device.  But if you need to power stuff at night - like lights, then you need a battery, a way to prevent the solar cells from draining the battery, like a diode, a way to turn on the device, like a timer, and so on.  Match the solar cell out put to the battery.

If you're going to power your house, and you want excess power to go to the grid, you need significant converters to get the power into whatever is common for your house, like 120 volt 60 Hz A/C, and converters to the grid.  These are expensive, i hear.