Saturday 8 October 2011

Testing Solar Power

By Jonathan Heath


When it comes to thinking of the future, renewable energy sources are often at the top of many people's priorities. One of the most simple to use and widely developed sources of renewable energy is solar power and this option in recent years has been developed into a wide range of applications.

Solar power has been used in a whole range of applications but most recently a crucial development has come about with the introduction of solar powered cars. As cars are one of the biggest creators of greenhouse gases, these new eco-friendly cars hope to provide use with a clean and efficient method of transport.

In recent years we have developed a range of electric hybrid cars and these cars have been put out on to the open market and are now available to many members of the public. Solar powered cars are designed in a very similar way and can be designed to work independently or to provide the electrical aspect for an electric hybrid car. PV cases are placed on the roof or side of the car to store the sun's rays and convert it into electricity.

Unfortunately, solar cars are not available to the wider market and the idea of bringing them onto this market has several pitfalls. The most important one possibly being the incredible cost it would currently take the manufacture a range of these cars in mass production. While sunlight is absolutely free unfortunately the PV cases that are needed to absorb the sunlight are not, in fact currently they are quite expensive.

There is also only a maximum amount of energy that can be stored in your car so when you run out it is not as simple as just running to the gas store to get more. The fastest a solar powered car has been able to go so far is 120km/h and this is a maximum, most cars would not reach this speed and therefore would really only be practical for making small journeys around the city and no long distance traveling.




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