Solar energy is the cheapest and most abundant source of energy on the planet. It it totally free, and is powerful enough and plentiful enough to meet the requirements of the entire world if we use only 0.1% of the energy that reaches us.

Until now solar energy was actually not cost effective enough to be used on a large scale. For example if you installed solar panels to power your home, it would take 20 yrs before it would break even on cost. This was a totally unacceptable time-line for most investors who stayed away.

Over the past few years however solar cell technology has been seeing a lot of advancements which are not only making them more efficient, but cheaper as well.

What are the new technologies?

The new technology that all solar enthusiasts are pinning their hopes on is the thin film solar cells. This thin film technology is radically different from the existing one, and is capable of making the solar cells as much as 65% more efficient. This is a tremendous advantage considering that even nuclear power stations are only 35% efficient, meaning that 65% of the energy is lost in the form of heat.

There have been a few problems though which have prevented this from happening. One is that the cost of making the panels was always too high. Although alternative raw materials that were much cheaper were starting to be used, it was the actual manufacturing process that was increasing the cost.

The material used until now was crystalline silicone, and coating the photo-voltaic cells on top took nearly 45 minutes per panel. Now researchers are experimenting with amorphous silicon which dramatically decreases the coating time by a factor of 10. This will result in tremendous cost savings.

Another problem with traditional solar cells is that the tiny micro channels that were used to interconnect the panels were done mechanically with a stylus. Since these micro channels were supposed to be only 10 or 20 nanometers deep, this was a very laborious and time consuming process.

Now researchers at the Purdue University’s center for Laser-based manufacturing, have found a way to use lasers to burn these micro channels. The lasers fire for only a few picoseconds which are one quadrillionth of a second, making sure that the silicon layers do not overheat, damaging them. They have also been found to make much cleaner and straighter micro channels than the styluses.

When will it hit the market?

Both these technologies are still under development, but initial studies have shows positive results. Already the Purdue team has received funding in the form of a three year grant of $425,000 from the National Science Foundation. The plan as of now is that there will be a solid scientific basis for these technologies within the next three years.

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At the World Mobile Congress that concluded in Barcelona, Spain Umeox unveiled the latest in their line of phones, a solar powered phone that costs only around $100 but looks really great. The manufacturer, a little known Chinese company called Umeox has partnered with the Dutch company, Intivation to bring out their phones. Intivation supplies the solar cells and Umeox makes the phones.

The Umeox initiative

Umeox has actually been making phones for long. They do not sell their phones under their own name but resell it to other makers who retail the phone as their products. This means that apart from the different models that Umeox has announced, there will be a few other manufacturers who will be bringing out solar powered phones in the near future.

The specifications of the Apollo as the phone is named after the Greek God of the Sun, is not that great, but at only around $100 it makes good value for money, especially if the solar recharger works as the company says it can. It has a 3 mp camera, 3.2 inch 320 X 480HVGA touch screen, 512 mb ram, a mediaTek processor, bluetooth, microSD card slot, 3G ability, wifi, 1 GB flash memory, and an audio jack.

This is however not the only model that Umoix will be bringing out. They have a total of three models, all with solar power capabilities. The Bing solar is a music phone, and the V206, is a very rugged model for those who are looking for a really durable kind of phone.

Apart from these models from Umeox there are other phones by Vodafone, ZTE and IAC, all carrying solar cell backs made by the same company, Intivation. There is also a solar charger that is in the pipeline to be brought out by XPAL.

These solar cells in the phones are enough to power the battery sufficiently so that you can extend your battery time almost indefinitely. There’s one catch though, if you allow the battery to run dry, it takes 17 hrs for it to reach full charge just using solar power. Research into typical usage characteristics of the majority of phone users however show that the phone can be recharged fully if placed in the sun face down for around 2 to 2.5 hrs a day.

Solar Phone Charger

The XPAL charger on the other hand is a charger pack that gives you the advantage of charging any phone using the sun. XPAL comes out with a number of mobile, rechargeable battery packs that can be used to recharge any device. Their latest product is their SP2000 which incorporates the Intivation solar cells to charge up the internal lithium polymer batteries.

It has a three panel, foldable solar panel that you can close and lock into place into a 7 oz package. It has a universal adapter so that you can pretty much charge any device including digital cameras, and gaming consoles.

Recently Apple too has been granted a patent for solar powered electronics showing that the trend towards using solar power for electronic devices is catching on really fast.

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Have you ever been in a place with no electricity and has your cell phone go off because its battery is fully discharged?

Well, if you are like me, it must have happened to you many times. In this era of instant communication, you need to be constantly reachable. Lack of charge in your cell phone battery can cause you to miss out on very important communication. Fortunately, we now have solar powered cell phones chargers. The other good news is that unlike the large solar panels, these solar powered chargers are quite inexpensive.

How They Work

As the name suggests, the charger will use the light energy that it receives from the sun and then convert the light energy to electric energy (DC.) The electric energy will then charge your battery like any other cell phone charger. The length of time or the intensity of light that will be needed for your cell phone battery to be fully charged will differ depending on the technology used and the wattage of the solar cells.

If the battery has got a high wattage, then definitely the time taken to charge the battery will be low. On the other hand, if it happens that the solar cells have got have very low wattage, then it will take more time to charge the battery. It is for this reason that a lot of solar cell phone battery chargers are usually used as trickle chargers. It might require up to 10 hours of sunlight for your battery to be fully charged. Now this is the same battery that usually takes 1hr – 2hrs when charging using the power from the electric grid.

The way that you will place the solar charger also depends on the model of the charger. Some solar chargers are attached to the back of the phone so that all you need to do is to let the back of your phone face the sunlight.

Conclusion

As already mentioned, these solar chargers are not so expensive compared to the traditional chargers. However, you should be careful so that you do not simply go for the cheapest. The numerous brands from China can be quite cheap but useless.

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We all have firsthand experience with the Sun and solar energy. We are aware that the air around us is warmer when the sun is out during the day than when it is obscured at night. We understand that the weather gets warmer during parts of the year where there are more hours of sunlight, and when the sun rises higher in the sky. Conversely, the weather gets cooler when the sun shines for fewer hours and doesn’t rise as high in the sky. Intuitively we know that the sun is responsible for most of the natural energy that drives our planet. It seems a natural question to ask: “Can we harness solar energy to make our lives easier?” The answer, as you probably know, is yes. The solar energy given off by the sun can be harnessed and converted into power useful for any number of tasks. This article will attempt to explain how solar power works and how it could affect the future of society, and indeed your very own future.

Light, or electromagnetic radiation, is a form of energy. The sun, being so large and powerful, emits particularly energetic light. The most common way of converting the sun’s light energy into useful power or electricity is by using photovoltaic cells or PVCs. In brief, these cells work by conducting the sun’s energy throughout the cell, which knocks electrons loose. Flowing electrons are essentially what we think of as electricity, so enough of these cells can generate quite a bit of electricity when they are exposed to sunlight. As you might imagine, solar energy is totally renewable. In other words, it is essentially available for free; we simply need the devices to harness it. Solar power results in zero carbon emissions. Since scientists estimate that the sun will continue to shine for at least another four billion years, we can be sure that the sun will provide plenty of free energy for the foreseeable future.

Using solar energy is becoming a more and more realistic option for many applications. Solar power has long been used to run satellites in space. It has been used in rural areas with limited or no access to traditional power grids, and it has been used for street lighting and railway crossings. Increasingly in recent years, people have been able to use solar power around the house to supplement the power they obtain from the traditional power grid. Solar power has been found to be very efficient for space heating, water heating, outdoor lighting, and general electricity needs. PVC arrays are becoming more affordable as time passes and as solar technology increases. Currently there is a wide selection of companies offering solar power packages geared toward homes and small businesses. Going forward, it appears that solar power will prove to be one of the most efficient, affordable and eco-friendly forms of alternative energy available to the consumer looking to save money while reducing his or her carbon footprint.

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At present the products manufactured with nanotechnology techniques represent 2.5 billion dollars worldwide, double the Gross Domestic Product of many countries and account for 15 percent of the market.

The research in solar energy and medicine are the most promising and competitive choices for nanotechnology, according to the Prince of Asturias Prize Winner in Science and Technology Emilio Mendez, who has participated in the Forum for Future Challenges (FTF, in short) of the Innovation Foundation Bankinter.

The field of nanotechnology (research at the level of atoms and molecules) is one of the scientific challenges of the future that will deliver applications in a decade. “Nanotechnology will have an impact on all economic sectors,” said the vice president for its part of the Innovation Foundation Bankinter, Charlie Lo.

However, countries would not make sense investing in nanotechnology applied to microelectronics, because the industry is very competitive and there are already great leaders, but in areas in which a particular country stands out such as solar energy, medicine and even the textile industry. “In developed countries, where labor is expensive, the only way to compete is in innovation, but because we will be in a few years subsidiary of Chinese companies,” said the prize winner.

Nanotechnology involves the practical application of science of the very small and the knowledge of how the small-scale materials behave. “As the size of the materials are so small, the properties change, as happens when a sugar cube when crunched, it occupies a larger surface area,” he added. Among the applications of nanotechnology are markers of bacteria or chemical tracer compound drugs, bulbs that do not lose heat, energy conductors made of carbon nanofibers which do not lose electricity, or tissues that do not wrinkle or stain.

Solar energy and health

The European Commission charged against the “shortcomings” in the labeling of sunscreen products and proposed a series of non-binding recommendations, which would apply for manufacturers to adopt a “standard, simple and understandable” on the EU market.

“Currently there are no uniform rules and consumers faced with a series of numbers and advertising slogans that are confusing and sometimes misleading, “which can be” dangerous “for health, said the spokesman for Business and Industry, Gregor Kreuzhuber.

Most of them show ‘sun protection factor, “which refers mainly to UVB (causing burns) from the solar energy, but not UVA rays (which increase the risk of cancer and contribute to the aging of the skin) , stressed the EU executive. Each producer describes this protection in different ways.

To eliminate confusion and discrepancies, Brussels proposes that every manufacturer shows a uniform protection against the solar power UVA as standardized test methods. Moreover, the ban aims to give expression leading to believe a total sun protection from the solar energy (like ‘Sunblock’, or ‘full screen’), believing that it does not exist.

Finally, the label should include clear and understandable instructions for the user to know how to properly use the solar product. For example, insist that it requires the implementation of large quantities and frequent applications to achieve the necessary protection.

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