Sun Means Life

The energy of the sunlight can be converted directly into electricity.

 

Solar energy refers primarily to the use of solar radiation for practical ends. Active solar techniques use photovoltaic panels to convert sunlight into electrical energy. These modules are made of solar cells, also called photovoltaic cells.

 

Cells can be manufactured from different types of materials. The most significant is crystalline silicon. We can distinguish three main types of commercially available cells:

 

Monocrystalline Silicon Cells:

Made using wafers cut from a single cylindrical crystal of silicon. The principle advantage of monocrystalline cells is their high efficiency, typically around 16% up to 21%, although the manufacturing process required to produce monocrystalline silicon is complicated, resulting in slightly higher costs than other technologies.

 

Polycrystalline Silicon Cells (also called Multicrystalline):

In the manufacturing process, molten silicon is cast into ingots, creating a granular texture. These ingots are then saw-cut into very thin wafers and assembled into complete cells. Polycrystalline cells are cheaper to produce than monocrystalline ones, due to the simpler manufacturing process. However, they tend to be slightly less efficient, with average efficiencies of around 16%.

Thin-Film Technology Cells:  

In the case of thin film modules the material which allows the exploitation and transformation of light into electrical energy is found on low-cost materials such as glass, steel or polymer. The basic elements of each thin film solar cell are: contact layers, absorbent elements, encapsulation elements and depending on the application, a frame.

Learn more about thin-film technology...


Inverters: 
The inverter converts the direct current (DC) from the photovoltaic generator to mono-phased alternating current (AC) with a voltage of 230V. For larger installations the DC current is converted into three-phased alternating current with a voltage of 400V. Inverters are available in many power ranges. Depending on the photovoltaic systems there will be three different types of inverters: the central inverter, the string or multi-string inverter and modular inverter. Regardless of the type, all inverters have at least the following tasks: to optimize, transform, feed in and supervise. Transformerless inverters that transform the current by using new technologies offer a higher efficiency but they cannot be used with some installations. However, their use has increased in the past years.