The Magic Behind PV Cells
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At the heart of any modern solar power system are the solar panels.
These are the part of the system that converts the sunlight into electricity for use in your home.
The brains behind these solar panels are the photovoltaic solar cells, or PV cells housed inside the solar panels.
These wonders of modern chemistry are the component that does the actual conversion.
These PV cells have improved over the years and today are more efficient and durable than ever before and help to make a solar power system the perfect alternative energy solution for homes of all kinds.
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The PV cells are based on the photovoltaic effect and the way they are produced has changed over the years as more about how they work their magic is understood. The photovoltaic effect occurs when certain materials are placed in sunlight and generate a small electrical current as a result.
These materials have the unique ability to extract power from sunlight and deliver it as a DC current.
This phenomenon was first discovered in the mid 1800’s through experimentation with electrolytic cells. It wasn’t really until about 1918 with the development of growing these PV cells from silicon that they started to become interesting commercially.
Up until then they were mostly used in laboratory experiments and research papers. Albert Einstein actually received a Nobel Prize in 1923 for his paper describing his theories about the PV effect.
Modern PV cells are based on crystals that are grown from silicon as this is currently the medium of choice for solar cells. Even though there are more exotic chemical combinations that exhibit the PV effect, silicon is the perfect combination of high output with a low cost.
Modern solar cells fall into one of three distinct types depending on how they are assembled and each of these has advantages and disadvantages.
The most efficient type of PV cells are called monocrystalline. These are grown out of a single large silicon crystal and offer the best conversion of sunlight to electricity of any of the PV cells. These large crystals are difficult to grow and can be fairly fragile to work with as well.
This is why even though these are the best type of PV cells to use in a home solar panel; they are the most expensive of all the cell types. Most modern solar panels use a monocrystalline solar cell to generate their power.
The next type of solar cell is called a polycrystalline and is made up of a collection of smaller silicon crystals. Many times these smaller crystals are pieces of larger crystals that were used elsewhere and other times they are grown to be smaller.
They key distinction is that these smaller crystals are joined together to act as a single cell. This type of solar cell is less efficient that the monocrystalline and less expensive as well. This type of solar cell is typically used in lower cost solar lighting like pathway or garden lighting that does not have the high power requirements of a home.
The last type of solar cell is not actually a physical cell at all, but is created when the liquid the other crystals are grown from is applied to a surface.
This liquid then matures into a crystal-like surface that can generate an electrical current. This is the least efficient of the solar cell types and is seen most often in products like solar roof shingles and flexible solar panels.