Benefits of Solar Energy
The Benefits of solar energy have been highlighted in other articles but will be compiled here in a comprehensive manner in order to give you, the humble reader, a good idea and overview of what makes solar energy so useful. Let's begin with the basics. No sun, no life. The sun provides us with life, heat, wind, and all the things we take for granted during the day - namely light. Now then, solar energy itself in modern day uses has many many benefits and I will attempt to cover the most possible. First off Solar Thermal Energy is the heat from the sun, which can be used to heat homes, decreasing electric and gas costs during the winter - making the house use less resources from coal burning power plants or the burning of fuel. It saves money and it saves the environment from greenhouse gasses which turn solar energy against us by heating our atmosphere. Next we have our hot water, yet another way of collecting solar energy at all times of year in water, keeping the water hot, and allowing us to use less money for fuel consumption, and less pollution by less demand on coal or oil plants and the processing of those fuels. Combine these two together and you could save a very large and significant amount of money in the long run with your heating and electrical bills, not to mention decrease your own personal impact on the environment.
Mirrors can be used to generate heat in a single point to super heat water into steam, turning steam turbines and outputting a large amount of electricity so that it is emission free and good for the environment - at the current technical pace this should be a cheaper option. Secondary to this, and much more efficient, is using the thermal solar energy benefits to power sterling engines that are capable of producing electricity without the need for super-heated steam, and are nearly 40% efficient in energy transfer. Photoelectric cell panels can be used to convert light energy directly into electrical currents for remote devices such as emergency phones, or for lighting of walkways, or even for large parking lot illumination poles - although currently this technology is expensive due to production costs. These are just some of the benefits of solar energy - and by the way, solar energy also powers the wind that drives the large wind turbine power stations (windmill power plants), a technology harnessed for hundreds of years.