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solar power
Sign in to saveAlso known as solar powered, solar electricity
conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity
In the Vinony graph
Vinony's link graph records 2,496 inbound references to solar power, and connects out to photovoltaic system, photovoltaic power station and solar cell panel.
It sits within the topics Bright green environmentalism, Energy conversion and Renewable energy.
Vinony links it to 45 Wikipedia language editions.
Wikidata facts
- Image
- Electrical and Mechanical Services Department Headquarters Photovoltaics.jpg
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- Commons category
- Solar energy
- OpenStreetMap tag
- electricity=solar
via Wikidata · CC0
~35 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Solar power, also known as solar electricity, is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Solar panels use the photovoltaic effect to convert light into an electric current. Concentrated solar power systems use lenses or mirrors and solar tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight to a hot spot, often to drive a steam turbine.
Photovoltaics (PV) were initially solely used as a source of electricity for small and medium-sized applications, from the calculator powered by a single solar cell to remote homes powered by an off-grid rooftop PV system. Commercial concentrated solar power plants were first developed in the 1980s. Since then, as the cost of solar panels has fallen, grid-connected solar PV systems' capacity and production have doubled about every three years. Three-quarters of new generation capacity is solar, with both millions of rooftop installations and gigawatt-scale photovoltaic power stations continuing to be built.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “solar power” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.