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How Efficient is Solar Power?

By Solar energy | September 23, 2008

Is Solar Power Efficient?

Just last week in a fuel price conversation among colleagues, someone wondered aloud why solar energy was not more aggressively pursued. The quick response was, “solar is not efficient.”

Really?

And hauling oil over here to America from Saudi Arabia is efficient? Here’s a tid-bit found in an newspaper article : “Our power grid wastes about two-thirds of energy due to conversion and distribution for electricity reaching our homes.”

To be fair, perhaps this gentleman was referring to the statistic that of all the energy striking the surface of a photovoltaic cell, only 15% of the energy is converted to electricity. Other factors, such as weather, can affect the efficiency of a solar panel as well.

Maybe he meant solar cells are not yet economically practical. Enough solar panels to serve the energy needs of one average size home are too expensive for most of us.

But consider that solar energy is inexhaustible, unlike fossil fuel.

What about the fact that solar energy pollutes neither our air nor our water?

I’m guessing here, but I think he probably meant solar energy is inconvenient for him. The fossil fuel system is in place. It’s easy to flip a switch and have instant light and heat. It’s easy to pump fuel into the car’s gas tank and go on our way. It’s easier not to change our habits of consumption.

My point is that there is more to efficiency than convenience. Pursuing, developing, and exploiting solar energy may not be easy today. But thinking in terms of clean and inexhaustible sources of energy, exploiting solar energy is indeed efficient.

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Topics: Reducing energy use, Renewable Energy, Solar Power | No Comments »

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