Template:Portal box Solar energy means energy from sunlight, in any form.
Some forms of solar energy include
- Electricity - see Solar power. Most commonly this means solar photovoltaic panels: see Category:photovoltaics for many more specific articles on photovoltaics. However, other forms of solar power exist.
- Solar heating; may be active or passive ; used for indoor environmental heating and heating water
- Production of mechanical energy, for example by a heat engine
Some forms of solar energy such as heating are well-adapted to low-technology appropriate construction, while others such as photovoltaic cells for the production of electricity are typically mass-produced in high-tech capital-intensive factories.
The relatively mild heating of a flat plate collector can be used for:
- directly warming water: see Open design water heater and AT solar power tower
- dehydrating food : Chris's ENGR305 Solar Food Dehydrator
- dehydrating seawater to get salt
- various steps in papermaking
According to Village Earth, water heated in a normal flat plate collector does not boil.[1]
So to Pasteurize water and to cook at high temperature cannot use flat plate collectors, but must use more complicated concentrating collectors that require frequent adjustment to keep them pointed at the sun, such as:
- Sunbrella
- Solar Cooking and Health
- mechanical mathematician for paraboloids
- How to build a solar cooker
- Solar cooking and development of solar cookers
- Humboldt solar cooking gallery
- Aleiha's parabolic solar cooker
- Parabolic basket and tin can solar cooker
For more specific articles on solar energy, see Category:Solar.
Notes
- ↑ Solar Energy from Village Earth
