Solar Facts

• The Earth receives enough energy from the Sun each hour to power the entire world for a year.
• Solar Energy is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh).  1 kilowatt = 1000 watts.  1 kWh is the amount of electricity required to burn a 100 watt light bulb for 10 hours.
• Sunlight travels to the earth in approximately 8 minutes from 93,000,000 miles away, at 186,282 miles per second.
• In California, covering every available commercial and industrial roof with solar power panels could generate all of the electricity needed in the state during the daytime.
• About 2 billion people in the world are currently without electricity.  That’s roughly one third of the entire population.  Solar Energy can help reach many of these people in remote locations without the need for costly infrastructure.
• The photovoltaic cell was discovered in 1954 by Bell Telephone researchers examining the sensitivity of a properly prepared silicon wafer to sunlight.  Beginning in the late 1950s, pvs were used to power U.S. space satellites.
• Silicon from one ton of sand, used in photovoltaic cells, could produce as much electricity as burning 500,000 tons of coal.
• In 2010, SunPower announced 24.2% efficient full scale solar cell. This record breaking achievement was confirmed by the U.S. Department of Energy.  Current high-performance panels, on average, convert about 17% of the light that strikes it into electricity. Conventional poly-silicon solar panels convert about 14% of light into electricity.
• You can cook food using nothing more than raw sunlight.
• The energy that hits solar panels and is not converted into electricity is lost in the form of heat.
• California opened its first large solar power plant in 1982.
• The price of photovoltaic (PV) solar power panels has dropped 200 percent over the last 30 years according to the Department of Energy.
• July 2010 is the first time a manned aircraft flew round the clock on nothing more than the Sun’s energy.  The craft flew for a total of 26 hours.