Maybe it’s well known and may it’s not,
The sun beams more than enough energy so satisfy the global energy needs of the Earth for an entire year, EVERY HOUR.
Solar energy is the technology used to harness the suns energy and make it usable. Today however, that technology produces less than one tenth of one percent of the global energy demand.
You may have heard of so called photovoltaic cells or Solar Panels, you have seen on roofs of houses similar to the slimmed down version you have on your calculator and of course our very own Thermodynamic Solar Panels which not only benefit from the solar energy but also the surrounding atmospheric conditions which enhance its performance.
On a much larger scale, solar thermal power plants employ various techniques to concentrate the sun’s energy as a heat source. The heat is then used to boil water to drive a steam turbine that generates electricity in much the same fashion as coal and nuclear power plants, supplying electricity for thousands of people.
In one technique, long troughs of U-shaped mirrors focus sunlight on a pipe of oil that runs through the middle. The hot oil then boils water for electricity generation. Another technique uses moveable mirrors to focus the sun’s rays on a collector tower, where a receiver sits. Molten salt flowing through the receiver is heated to run a generator.
Other solar technologies are passive. For example, big windows placed on the sunny side of a building allow sunlight to heat-absorbent materials on the floor and walls. These surfaces then release the heat at night to keep the building warm. Similarly, absorbent plates on a roof can heat liquid in tubes that supply a house with hot water.
Solar energy is lauded as an inexhaustible fuel source that is pollution and often noise free. The technology is also versatile. For example, solar cells generate energy for far-out places like satellites in Earth orbit and cabins deep in the Rocky Mountains as easily as they can power downtown buildings and futuristic cars.
But solar energy doesn’t work at night without a storage device such as a battery, and cloudy weather can make the technology unreliable during the day. Solar technologies are also very expensive and require a lot of land area to collect the sun’s energy at rates useful to lots of people.
This is where our Thermodynamic Solar Panel excels. As a hybrid, it combines the benefits of a solar panel with a refrigerant gas so that even on those cloudy dark days, which Ireland has in abundance, it still generates 100% of your hot water.
