Is it efficient to get electricity from solar panels?

Low efficiency of solar panels is their main drawback. To date, there is a lot of discussion of such topics as energy efficiency of solar systems. The higher this indicator, the lower the cost of converting solar energy into electricity.

What determines the efficiency

A square meter of the panel is able to “absorb” up to 20% of the energy supplied to it from the sun. This percentage is possible under the most favorable conditions: that is, in bright daylight. To ensure high efficiency, it is necessary to place huge areas of solar cells on your site.

What directly affects the efficiency: temperature, angle of incidence of the rays, surface cleanliness of the photocells, lack of shadow, weather. The angle of incidence for maximum efficiency should be straight. Due to the overheating of the panels, their efficiency is reduced, so they must be ventilated.

What are solar cells and their effectiveness

The sun's rays interacting with the surface using photons knock out negatively charged particles from atoms. After the formation of a sufficient number of particles in a closed circuit, a current is generated.

One or two panels to form full power is not enough, so you need to combine several pieces into a battery. To get the required power and voltage, they are connected in a certain way: in parallel and in the required sequence. With the increase in the number of panels, power is directly proportional to.

Photocells

To increase efficiency, photocells are multilayer. In this case, the layers consist of different materials that capture certain light quanta. Thus, each part captures its energy. In theory, the percentage of efficiency of multilayer solar cells reaches 87%. In practice, the manufacture of panels is problematic, and the output price is very high.

Efficiency depends on the type of silicon located in the solar cells. It is single crystal, polycrystalline and amorphous. The former are recognized as the most effective, since their efficiency is about 15%, the price is higher than all the others. The latter have the lowest cost per watt of energy, in some situations they are more efficient than single-crystal ones. Silicon photocells are made easier and have a low price, but their efficiency is very low - 6%. Moreover, after a while they lose their properties.