4 Amazing Facts About Solar Panels

We all know that the sun is a massive source of energy. Solar panels are truly amazing devices but aren’t very well understood by some people. So I thought I’d put together a list of 4 amazing facts about solar panels (some of these may surprise you)!

1) Solar energy is free! Our gift from the Sun…

To start, we can provide all the world’s power needs many times over – with just solar energy. We are able to use solar energy because solar panels allow us to convert that energy into useable electricity. Solar panels use a photovoltaic (PV) method for producing electricity – which just means they produce electricity by taking solar energy/light and then convert it into direct current electricity.

Pretty neat stuff – but here’s a few more fun facts about solar panels…

2) Solar panels can save you significant amounts money

People who use solar panels save money on their electricity bills. This is a fact. Why? Simple, because solar panels take sunlight and convert it into useable electricity for your home. And, as we all know, sunlight is free! Nobody is going to charge you for the amount of sunlight you consumed this month.

After installing enough solar panels, a person can actually get enough electricity to keep a whole house running on a daily basis if they build a large enough system. And relying on free energy from the Sun is obviously a lot cheaper (free is a price I like!) than overpriced electricity you have to buy from the big energy companies.

So people who switch to solar save a lot of money on their future electricity bills.

3) What are solar panels made of?

Solar panels are amazing devices which offer the world an incredibly reliable and clean form of renewable electricity. But what are they made out of?

Well, the great thing about solar panels is that they are made up of pretty inexpensive parts! A solar panel is essentially a collection of small solar cells over a large area so these solar cells can get light from the Sun. Solar panels use silicon crystals, which help to produce electric currents from light.

Silicon is a very efficient material to turn light energy into electricity. In general, the more light that hits a solar cell, the more electricity the solar cell produces (up to the solar cell’s labeled limitation). And if you want more power production in one solar panel, you simply connect more solar cells. Easy stuff.

What else is nice is that because prices of solar cell parts have come down so much in recent years, people can make their own professional quality solar panels pretty easily (with these new, A-grade parts) for about 10x less cost than compatible retail solar panels.

4) How does a solar panel turn sunlight into electricity?

We already briefly went over this but the process of turning light into electricity is known as the photovoltaic effect. Basically, this effect happens when silicon atoms absorb the photons from the sun and produce electrons. Then these electrons can move around freely, which will be eventually be transported through the basic wiring in the solar panel to the inverter. Then inside the inverter the direct current (from the solar panel) transforms it into usable power for appliances.

Most people are surprised when they find out how few parts actually go into a solar panel. And luckily these parts have become dirt cheap in recent years (which is one of the reasons DIY solar panels make so much sense now).

I hope you enjoyed these 4 facts about solar panels!

So are you interested in producing your own free energy? Or having more energy independence and more control over your home’s energy? Then why not build your own professional DIY solar panels like I did. It’s easy, fun, and really cheap …and saves you money every month for the rest of your life! Not a bad little investment!