How Do Solar Panels Work

By Hedrick Lepsch


If you are planning on adding a green electrical or energy system in your home like solar panels or if you are simply curious as to how your car battery works this article will go through a basic understanding of the lead-acid battery and how it functions to store and provide you with the electricity that you need, when you need it.

Your Panels

These batteries are very heavy because they are packed with lead and lead-oxide sheets which are both very dense materials. While they are old and do represent a serious environmental risk if disposed of incorrectly, lead and lead oxide are plentiful in nature and making the effective battery cheap to produce. This is why 19th century technology is still so popular.

The decade that began unprecedented solar energy growth was in the 1990s. It is said that solar energy use increased by about 20 percent each year-year after year. And that growth continues, largely to dramatic improvements to the technology of solar panels. This improvement has made solar panels more efficient and less expensive.

Many solar panel systems will store the electricity generated in a chemical battery. These batteries are generally deep-cycle batteries which can generate a low current while sustaining of the life of a battery. Car batteries on the other hand are shallow-current which can discharge a large amount of energy but for a short time. The batteries used are either lead-acid batteries (sealed or vented) and nickel-cadium batteries. There are a variety of batteries you can use that differ primarily in the amount of energy they can store. However, more energy usually comes with a higher price tag.

The two different style batteries have unique applications in which they excel. The battery that you see in your car will be a high power battery because a short but powerful burst of energy is needed to start your car.

The short burst is really all that it is good for. When you use the battery a light layer of lead sulfate builds up between the lead plate and the lead oxide plate. If you run your car battery to zero charge a few times (leaving the lights on) the lead sulfate will build up to the point where the electrons can no longer transfer and battery is 'dead'.

Batteries can be expensive and your controller ensures the battery will last. The last part of a normal Solar Panel rig is your inverter which will change the direct current generated from your solar rig to usable, alternating current. Some modules called AC modules have a converter already inside of them.

Deep cycle batteries will have thicker electrodes (than a car battery) for increased energy density and be spaced farther apart. The extra space allows the sulfate debris that builds up to fall down below the plates into a storage area. Deep cycle batteries are larger, heavier, and give off a lower current than a car battery.

The increased level of efficiency is a great improvement for the industry. Now, with the same amount of physical space necessary for the solar panels, people can get 0.3 percent more energy from the panels. This may seem like a small improvement, but, depending on the location, this improvement can be as much as a 20 percent increase in efficiency.




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