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A Look At Solar Energy
Nathan Clark, Grade 7
Home Learning Partners- SD 64
June 30, 2015
Hi, this is my project on solar energy that I have been learning about the past
several months. I met three people involved in solar energy: Michael Cooke, the
owner of SunWindSolar, a store that develops solar kits for classes and
demonstrations, Briony Penn, who has built a solar powered home, and Tom
Graham who worked on the recently completed solar energy project at the high
school.
I am interested in solar energy not only because of
the environmental aspects of reducing greenhouse
gasses produced by fossil fuels, but I am also
personally interested in this because we partially live
on a sailboat powered by solar panels.
Before we get into the solar sites I visited, here is a
basic introduction to the some of the workings of
solar energy systems. Solar panels are made of silicon which is a semiconductor.
Semiconductors will be explained in a minute. When the energy contained in
sunlight hits the silicon in the solar cells it turns into electricity which can be put
to use powering devices either directly or by storing the energy in batteries.
Electricity is the flow of energy through a material.
Inside an atom there is a nucleus, comprised of protons and neutrons with a shell
around it made up of a certain amount of electrons. In a conductor such as
copper the electrons are looser and therefore can more easily be knocked off the
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atom. This pushes an electron off this atom and on to the next one, and so on.
This creates an electric flow. Some materials allow this flow better than others.
These are known as conductors, as we have just seen. Insulators are the opposite
of this and they do not allow the flow of electricity. The electrons are a lot tighter.
Semiconductors are materials that can either allow or prevent current from
flowing, depending on the energetic state of the material at the time. One of
these is silicon, used in solar panels. The electrons can be loosened in a
semiconductor via a process called doping, which means adding impurities to the
materials which changes their polarity.
Solar cells covert sunlight into electricity but once the light stops so does the
current. To be able to store the electricity for later use we need a battery.
Batteries have three parts: an anode, a cathode, and an electrolyte. The anode
and the cathode are positive and negative poles that are hooked up to an
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electrical current. Battery acid is an electrolyte which is a chemical medium that
allows the flow of electrical charge between the cathode and anode. When a
device is connected to a battery—a light bulb or an electric circuit—chemical
reactions occur on the electrodes that create a flow of electrical energy to the
device. Batteries are used to store the energy captured through solar cells.
Here is an explanation by Heinz at our local sailing club on how he has integrated
solar panels on his sailboat.
The earth gets 174 Petawatts of incoming solar radiation in the upper
atmosphere. About thirty percent is reflected back into space and the rest is
absorbed by land, clouds, and oceans. On a clear day, at earth's surface we are
receiving solar energy at one kilowatt per square meter. This is well over enough
to power all of our daily energy usage with incredible amounts to spare.
Over this year I met three people involved in different aspects of solar energy,
and learned about marketing, environmental, and engineering issues.
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(Michael Cooke) This is Michael Cooke. He is the owner of SunWindSolar and a
former science teacher. We went on a tour of his shop and learned about the
business aspects of producing and selling solar powered educational kits and the
workings of solar energy.
Michal Cooke founded SunWindSolar in 1995 and he has been selling simple solar
kits for demonstrations in middle and primary schools. He very kindly gave us one
of these kits to test out for ourselves. After a bit of fiddling, we got it to work.
He has also has developed a variety of different solar items including wind devices
such as this battery charger fan that is powered by wind.
At the end of our visit we talked about the future of solar energy.
Well that was Michael Cooke, a fascinating look into the retail and marketing
aspects of selling solar panels. Next up is Briony Penn.
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(Briony Penn) This is Briony Penn, an environmentalist and solar home enthusiast.
Some measures she has taken to make her home energy efficient include using
energy efficient appliances such as a smaller fridge and LED light bulbs, having a
solar water heater (a device that uses solar heat to heat water for showers and
washing dishes), being net metered (selling extra energy back to the hydro). The
roof of her house is lined with solar panels (along with the solar water heater)
that power her entire house plus extra energy for net metering. Briony also talked
about related things such as houses made with only the materials within one mile,
and the monetary aspects of owning a solar home. And, as Briony’s house shows,
it can cost far less to own a solar powered house in the long term.
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(Tom Graham) Tom Graham worked on the recently completed solar energy
project at the Salt Spring Island high school. He helped install the arrays of solar
panels on the roof.
Tom talked about solar power from an engineering point of view, explaining the
merits and faults of the two main ways of using solar energy. The first way is
called netfeed. They run power directly from the solar panels to your devices and
into the electrical grid. This way is simpler, less costly and low maintenance, but
you need a separate power source for cloudy days or at night. This system is
better for people who wish to use solar energy to supplement a separate power
system.
The second way Tom called battery which involves running the power into
batteries and then later flow it into whatever you need. The benefits of the
second way, Tom explained, are that you can store power for times without sun,
and you can route the energy more easily to whatever you need. The main
problems are it is more expensive and harder to set up and requires more
maintenance.
Tom took us on a tour of the solar panel installation. The power collected by the
solar panels on the roof flows into the school, and then goes into three inverters
which convert the energy from DC power to AC power. Then it goes into the
regular electrical panel where it enters the electrical grid. Here Tom is explaining
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how the system can be shut off when needed, such as when Hydro is working on
the electrical lines during a power outage.
The sunny web box monitors how much power is being produced. The
information is sent to a website and is also displayed prominently inside the
school for everyone to see.
The solar hot water heater is like the one in Briony Penn's house only on a bigger
scale. Solar panels are heating up glycol which heats the water directly. Tom said
that the solar water heater is possibly more efficient than the panels themselves.
Conclusion
Well that was my project on solar energy. It's strange really, how everyone we
talked to said similar things: that in most aspects solar is a better, more efficient,
and possibly even more profitable than other, more harmful ways of obtaining
energy like the tar sands, fracking and oil drilling.
After this project we are even thinking about adding solar panels to our house in
the future, hopefully to inspire others to do the same. In my opinion the best
thing we can do to help promote solar energy is to tell others how great it is.
I think that solar and forms of environmentally friendly energy are very important
to the health of our planet and, in the near future, they may very possibly
become, as Michael Cooke says, big players in energy production.
Special thanks to Amy, Gerri, and Sarah for helping us set up these various
interviews. I hope you enjoyed and were inspired by my project.
Credits
Direction, scripts, diagrams (except for doping diagram) by Nathan Clark
Camera and video production assistance by Larry Shetzer
Photo/video Credits:
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Coal plants.........Discovery Channel
Nellis AFB Solar Panels......Wikimedia Commons
Topaz Solar Farm.......image by Jesse Allen, courtesy of NASA
Andasol Power Station ......image by By BSMPS
BedZED Solar Panels ........image by Tom Chance from Peckham
Thanks to Heinz Vitovec for touring the solar panel installation on board Umbra
Thanks to .......
Michael Cooke - SunWind Solar
Briony Penn
Tom Graham - Gulf Island Secondary School
for generously sharing their time and knowledge.
And to ......
Gerri Charlton, Home Learning Partners
for terrific support, encouragement, guidance and spirit .
Amy Cousins, Dragonflies HLP, SD 64
for sharing her environmental expertise.
Thanks also to .....
Gerri Charlton, Amy Cousins and Sarah Hook-Nilsson, Connecting Generations
for help arranging site visits.
Salt Spring Island BC June 2015
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Thanks very much to Gerri Charlton at Home Learning, Amy Cousins from the
Dragonflies Program and Sarah Hook-Nilsson of Connecting Generations for help
to arrange the meetings.