PHYSICS OF Solar Energy

Science/Physics/Energy

The definitive guide to the science of solar energy

You hold in your hands the first, and only, truly comprehensive guide to the most abundant and most promising source of alternative energy--solar power.

In recent years, all major countries in the world have been calling for an energy revolution. The renewable energy industry will drive a vigorous expansion of the global economy and create more "green" jobs. The use of fossil fuels to power our way of living is moving toward an inevitable end, with sources of coal, petroleum, and natural gas being fiercely depleted.

Solar energy offers a ubiquitous, inexhaustible, clean, and highly efficient way of meeting the energy needs of the twenty-first century. This book is designed to give the reader a solid footing in the general and basic physics of solar energy, which will be the basis of research and development in new solar engineering technologies in the years to come.

As solar technologies like solar cells, solar thermal power generators, solar water heaters, solar photochemistry applications, and solar space heating-cooling systems become more and more prominent, it has become essential that the next generation of energy experts--both in academia and industry--have a one-stop resource for learning the basics behind the science, applications, and technologies afforded by solar energy. This book fills that need by laying the groundwork for the projected rapid expansion of future solar projects.

C. JULIAN CHEN is an Adjunct Professor and Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia University. His research interests include scanning tunneling microscopy, mathematical models of the human voice, and utilization of solar energy. Before going into academia, he spent fifteen years in IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where he authored Introduction to Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and invented a widely used algorithm for Chinese language speech recognition.

Science/Physics/Energy

The definitive guide to the science of solar energy

You hold in your hands the first, and only, truly comprehensive guide to the most abundant and most promising source of alternative energysolar power.

In recent years, all major countries in the world have been calling for an energy revolution. The renewable energy industry will drive a vigorous expansion of the global economy and create more green jobs. The use of fossil fuels to power our way of living is moving toward an inevitable end, with sources of coal, petroleum, and natural gas being fiercely depleted.

Solar energy offers a ubiquitous, inexhaustible, clean, and highly efficient way of meeting the energy needs of the twenty-first century. This book is designed to give the reader a solid footing in the general and basic physics of solar energy, which will be the basis of research and development in new solar engineering technologies in the years to come.

As solar technologies like solar cells, solar thermal power generators, solar water heaters, solar photochemistry applications, and solar space heating-cooling systems become more and more prominent, it has become essential that the next generation of energy expertsboth in academia and industryhave a one-stop resource for learning the basics behind the science, applications, and technologies afforded by solar energy. This book fills that need by laying the groundwork for the projected rapid expansion of future solar projects.

Zusammenfassung
PHYSICS OF Solar Energy

Science/Physics/Energy

The definitive guide to the science of solar energy

You hold in your hands the first, and only, truly comprehensive guide to the most abundant and most promising source of alternative energysolar power.

In recent years, all major countries in the world have been calling for an energy revolution. The renewable energy industry will drive a vigorous expansion of the global economy and create more green jobs. The use of fossil fuels to power our way of living is moving toward an inevitable end, with sources of coal, petroleum, and natural gas being fiercely depleted.

Solar energy offers a ubiquitous, inexhaustible, clean, and highly efficient way of meeting the energy needs of the twenty-first century. This book is designed to give the reader a solid footing in the general and basic physics of solar energy, which will be the basis of research and development in new solar engineering technologies in the years to come.

As solar technologies like solar cells, solar thermal power generators, solar water heaters, solar photochemistry applications, and solar space heating-cooling systems become more and more prominent, it has become essential that the next generation of energy expertsboth in academia and industryhave a one-stop resource for learning the basics behind the science, applications, and technologies afforded by solar energy. This book fills that need by laying the groundwork for the projected rapid expansion of future solar projects.

Inhalt

Preface xv

List of Figures xix

List of Tables xxv

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

1.1 Solar Energy 1

1.2 Go beyond Petroleum 5

1.3 Other Renewable Energy Resources 8

1.3.1 Hydroelectric Power 9

1.3.2 Wind Power 11

1.3.3 Biomass and Bioenergy 14

1.3.4 Shallow Geothermal Energy 19

1.3.5 Deep Geothermal Energy 20

1.4 Solar Photovoltaics Primer 22

1.4.1 Birth of Modern Solar Cells 22

1.4.2 Some Concepts on Solar Cells 24

1.4.3 Types of Solar Cells 25

1.4.4 Energy Balance 25

1.5 Above Physics 26

1.5.1 Economics of Solar Energy 27

1.5.2 Moral Equivalence of War 29

1.5.3 Solar Water Heaters over the World 31

1.5.4 Photovoltaics: Toward Grid Parity 35

Problems 40

Chapter 2: Nature of Solar Radiation 41

2.1 Light as Electromagnetic Waves 41

2.1.1 Maxwell's Equations 42

2.1.2 Vector Potential 43

2.1.3 Electromagnetic Waves 43

2.1.4 Plane Waves 44

2.1.5 Polarization of Light 45

2.1.6 Motion of an Electron in Electric and Magnetic Fields 46

2.2 Optics of Thin Films 47

2.2.1 Relative Dielectric Constant and Refractive Index 48

2.2.2 Energy Balance and Poynting Vector 49

2.2.3 Fresnel Formulas 50

2.3 Blackbody Radiation 52

2.3.1 RayleighJeans Law 53

2.3.2 Planck Formula and StefanBoltzmann's Law 55

2.4 Photoelectric Effect and Concept of Photons 58

2.4.1 Einstein's Theory of Photons 60

2.4.2 Millikan's Experimental Verification 61

2.4.3 WaveParticle Duality 62

2.5 Einstein's Derivation of Blackbody Formula 63

Problems 65

Chapter 3: Origin of Solar Energy 67

3.1 Basic Parameters of the Sun 68

3.1.1 Distance 68

3.1.2 Mass 68

3.1.3 Radius 68

3.1.4 Emission Power 69

3.1.5 Surface Temperature 69

3.1.6 Composition 70

3.2 KelvinHelmholtz Time Scale 70

3.3 Energy Source of the Sun 72

3.3.1 The p p Chain 73

3.3.2 Carbon Chain 74

3.3.3 Internal Structure of the Sun 74

Problems 74

Chapter 4: Tracking Sunlight 77

4.1 Rotation of Earth: Latitude and Longitude 77

4.2 Celestial Sphere 78

4.2.1 Coordinate Transformation: Cartesian Coordinates 81

4.2.2 Coordinate Transformation: Spherical Trigonometry 83

4.3 Treatment in Solar Time 84

4.3.1 Obliquity and Declination of the Sun 84

4.3.2 Sunrise and Sunset Time 86

4.3.3 Direct Solar Radiation on an Arbitrary Surface 87

4.3.4 Direct Daily Solar Radiation Energy 88…