MG
SOLAR POWER
WHAT IS SOLAR POWER?
Solar power generation is, same as Tidal current power generation, one of the most well-known type of renewable energy source. Solar means sun in Latin. It uses sun's energy, which is in form of radiation, to generate electricity directly from it. Basically, they use solar panel, which is composed of photovoltaic cells, to convert the sun ray into electricity. Now let's talk about this more deeply.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Basically, the reason why we use solar power, even though we already have Tidal Current Power is that Tidal Current Power might not work some days. So in case, for supplementary electricity, we are using solar power. In Cordelia, there are solar panels attatched on the roof of every house. Those solar panels are composed of Photovoltaic cells, or PV cells. And these PV cells are made of silicon, which is known as semi-conductor. Semi-conductor is a type of material that has both properties of metals and non-metals.Silicon atoms are tightly arranged together. But when we squeeze some more different elements here, the solar panel is seperated into two parts, P cell and N cell. And this kind of solar panel is called PN junction cell. P cell and N cell are attached to each other. When the sunlight, which is composed of particles called photons, hit the solar panel, electrons
are freed from silicon atoms in N cell, and by the freedom of electrons, the same size of "hole" is made on P cell.
In here, the electrons in N cell tends to move over to P cell, to make up those holes. However, electrons can't pass through part where P cell and N cell meets each other. So by connecting P cell and N cell with electric cable, electrons on N cell will all move to P cell, which created the electric current, which is, eventually, the electricity!
Also, since silicon is semi-conductor, it acts like an insulator, which keeps this electrical imbalance. This imbalance acts like a slope, or voltage, which makes electrons to move in same direction.
After the electricity is generated, these go to inverter, which are located on somewhere right next to solar panel on the roof. The first electricity generated by solar panel is Direct Current (DC), which will be transforming into Alternating Current (AC). And this stage is also called "conditioning". The reason why we are doing this is that nowadays, almost all the electric home appliances, computer, or light bulbs use AC instead of DC. However, when we transform DC electricity to AC, we lose 10% of the entire electricity.
Then eventually, AC electricity will be transmitted into all parts of people's house, or building via electric cable, and people will use them. Unlike Tidal current power, there won't be any official, huge tidal turbine plants, but instead, we will just have solar panels attached on every single house, or buildings, for supplementary electricity.
WHAT ARE ADVANTAGES OF SOLAR POWER?
1. Solar energy is completely eco-friendly and renewable source of energy since it uses sunlight as its fuel (which won't run out until 5 billion years from now).And it only emits 50 g of Co2 per KJ/s. Comparing to coal, which emits 975g of Co2 per KJ/s, solar energy is actually really eco-friendly. And sun produces consistent power throughout the year, so using solar power, we can pretty much generate constantly throughout the year, except for some rainy or cloudy days.
2. Solar panels require really small maintenance cost. The capital cost for installation and optimization can be kind of expensive, but except that, it won't need any support.
3. Solar power is silent energy producer. It creates absolutely no noise. So even if we all have solar panels in each house in Cordelia, nobody will get distracted by the sound. Compared to some other renewable energy sources such as wind power, which produces a lot of low frequency sound, solar power is actually an awesome energy source. Also, solar cells last for long time. So we don't have to change them with new one every year, which can save a lot of money.
4. Solar panels are actually really easy to install, which doesn't require any power source during installation. Some energy sources, such as wind or geothermal power need drilling machines when iinstalling them, and they take up a lot of space. However, in Cordelia, solar panels are just installed on rooftops, so they don't take any space up from the ground or inside the house, and they don't need any machines for installation.
HOW MUCH ELECTRICITY IS GENERATED FROM SOLAR POWER?
In Cordelia, we have about 4, 000 houses (all villas), 15 buildings (for several purposes such as working office), and 50 hotels (about 300 people are allowed per hotel) in total. And we have solar panels only on all houses, so we have entirely 4, 000 solar panels in our city. And all those solar panels generate about 200 J/s per hour. However, generating electricity with solar panels depend on several elements, which are "How much sunlight does solar panel get", "How big are solar panels", and "How efficient are solar panels at converting DC to AC".
Solar panels in Cordelia are all built as same size, same efficiency (loses 10% when converting), and by the change of the location of the sun, solar panels also tilt along it, so that it can always receive the maximum amount of sunlight.
As already said on Tidal Current Power page
( ), there are 22, 000 people in Cordelia. And each person will be using 1~2 KJ/s per day, which means in maximum, Cordelia need 44, 000 KJ/s, or 44 MJ/s per day. Including some other electricity being used in theater, malls, or restaurants, the electricity needed per day in total will be about 52 ~ 57 MJ/s.
Now let's check how much electricity do the entire solar panels in Cordelia generate per day. There are entirely 4, 000 solar panels in Cordelia, and all of them can generate 200 J/s per hour. In maximum capacity, 200 times 4, 000 = 800, 000 J/s, or 800 KJ/s, so in 1 hour, we can get about 800 KJ by solar energy. And in one day, we can generate 19, 200 KJ/s, or 19.2 MJ/s. Moreover, by converting this DC into AC, it becomes 17.28 MJ/s. Now some people might say 19.2 MJ/s is too less for Cordelia. It is true, however, considering the fact that solar power will only be used for supplementary electricity, 17.28 MJ/s can be enough, since people will be using electricity generated from Tidal current power for most of the time.
All the electricity generated from solar power are sent directly to accumulators (storage cell, where we store surplus electricity to use them later. Refer to ) that are located right next to each house.
This way, we can store and use those electricity anytime they want when the city is out of electricity or when the Tidal current power doesn't work. Also, we can use them to charge electric cars. Moreover, we sell those electricity to other countries (that are right next to Mediterranean Sea), and get money from it. This can help a lot in improving the economy of Cordelia.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
A solar panel which generates 200 J/s per hour costs about 55, 095 Dirham. And there are exactly 4, 000 solar panels on Cordelia.
55, 095 times 4, 000 = 220, 380, 000, so we need 220, 380, 000 Dirhams in total to install all solar panels
Solar panels require really small maintenance cost. However, it requires some generation cost. To generate 3.6 MJ/s, it needs almost 2 Dirhams for generation cost. And the entire solar panels generate 19.2 MJ/s per day (excluding converting DC to AC). So per day, we need about 11 Dirhams.
In a nutshell, for capital cost, we need 220, 380, 000 Dirhams, and for generation, maintenance cost, we need 4, 015 Dirhams per year.