Generating solar power has moved out of the laboratory and is now a commercially viable way of producing electricity. It is in the headlines a lot because it is renewable and will reduce our carbon footprint. Although there are still large numbers of the population who don’t know how solar power works and who want to build a solar panel. We all know that solar energy turns sunlight into power but are uncertain about exactly how it does it and what is involved.

The sun has been around for a billion years and will likely be here for another billion years and so is capable of producing a large chunk of our energy needs for some time to come. Technology is still in its infancy but once this has been truly mastered, which won’t be that many years away, the world will have its oil replacement and the taxman will have to invent new ways of generating revenue. The environmental impact will be huge, in a positive way; carbon emissions will be reduced dramatically and hopefully slow down global warming.

Unlike heating water with solar energy, which is just a straight transfer of heat from the sun to the water, solar electricity has to go through a process. The light is captured or absorbed by a solar panel which is made up of silicon crystals, these are normally either monocrystalline or polycrystalline panels. The silicon is found in the solar panels that are created in order to capture the sun’s power. The electrons in the silicon start to move around when the sunlight hits it, it is this movement of the electrons which creates an electric charge.

The solar panels are often fitted to the roof of a house or are mounted on racks in the yard. The solar panel is made up of individual solar cells which are all joined together to make one panel. Each cell may create 1 watt of electricity so if they have 100 cells in an array, the panel will create a 100 watts of electricity per hour. When sunlight is absorbed by the silicon, the electrons flicker and move around the solar panels. The said movement is the one transmitted into the solar power hardware and thus, creates a current that may be used to power up appliances and electronic items.

If one is still confused about how to build a solar panel and how it works, imagine that you have a book shelf on the wall which is full of books. If you had a bag of confetti and through them at some newlyweds, as the confetti fell to the ground they would fly everywhere and look a right mess. When sunlight hits the solar panels, a similar thing happens to the electrons in the solar cell and it is this activity that creates the electricity. Because of its simplicity; this enables many people to build a solar panel and save money by doing it themselves.

To clarify, the moving electrons generate a charge, this charge is passed form solar cell to solar cell and as it does this, it forms an electric current which runs through the cells electrical wiring. The solar panel then outputs the electricity as DC power but to use this electricity in the home it has to be converted to AC. The output of the panel can generate anything from 1 watt to 200 watts depending on the size and number of solar cells.