A heat pump is a device that uses work to transfer heat from a cool space to a warm space by transferring thermal energy using a refrigeration cycle, cooling the cool space and warming the warm space. In cold weather a heat pump can move heat from the cool outdoors to warm a house; the pump may also be designed to move heat from the house to the warmer outdoors in warm weather. As they transfer heat rather than generating heat, they are more energy-efficient than other ways of heating or cooling a home.
Net metering is an electricity billing mechanism that allows consumers who generate some or all of their own electricity to use that electricity anytime, instead of when it is generated. This is particularly important with renewable energy sources like wind and solar, which are non-dispatchable. Monthly net metering allows consumers to use solar power generated during the day at night, or wind from a windy day later in the month. Annual net metering rolls over a net kilowatt-hour (kWh) credit to the following month, allowing solar power that was generated in July to be used in December, or wind power from March in August.
The Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to design, fund and implement solar energy solutions to benefit those in poor rural communities without access to an electrical grid. This allows students to study at night and brings computers and Internet into schools. It makes it possible to bring in water for irrigation without having to hand-carry it long distances, allowing women to spend their time on money-earning enterprises. Access to electricity and water improves health care. SELF has completed several projects in more than 20 countries including a solar powered drip irrigation in Benin, a health care centre in Haiti, telemedicine in the Amazon rainforest, online learning platform in South Africa, and a microenterprise development in Nigeria.
Microgeneration is the small-scale production of heat or electric power from a "low carbon source," as an alternative or supplement to traditional centralized grid-connected power.
Hybrid power are combinations between different technologies to produce power.
Solar shingles, also called photovoltaic shingles, are solar panels designed to look like and function as conventional roofing materials, such as asphalt shingle or slate, while also producing electricity. Solar shingles are a type of solar energy solution known as building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV).
India's solar power installed capacity was 73.32 GWAC as of 31 December 2023.
According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, renewable energy accounted for about 13.1% of total primary energy consumption and about 21.5% of total utility-scale electricity generation in the United States in 2022.
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. Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic effect. 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.
Solar power includes solar farms as well as local distributed generation, mostly on rooftops and increasingly from community solar arrays. In 2022, utility-scale solar power generated 145.6 terawatt-hours (TWh), or 3.4% of electricity in the United States. Total solar generation that year, including estimated small-scale photovoltaic generation, was 204 TWh.
Solar power in Arizona has the potential to, according to then-Governor Janet Napolitano, make Arizona "the Persian Gulf of solar energy". In 2012, Arizona had 1,106 MW of photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems, and 6 MW of concentrated solar power (CSP), bringing the total to over 1,112 megawatts (MW) of solar power. As an example, the Solana Generating Station, a 280 MW parabolic trough solar plant, when commissioned in 2013, was the largest parabolic trough plant in the world and the first U.S. solar plant with molten salt thermal energy storage.
The energy sector in Hawaii has rapidly adopted solar power due to the high costs of electricity, and good solar resources, and has one of the highest per capita rates of solar power in the United States. Hawaii's imported energy costs, mostly for imported petroleum and coal, are three to four times higher than the mainland, so Hawaii has motivation to become one of the highest users of solar energy. Hawaii was the first state in the United States to reach grid parity for photovoltaics. Its tropical location provides abundant ambient energy.
A rooftop solar power system, or rooftop PV system, is a photovoltaic (PV) system that has its electricity-generating solar panels mounted on the rooftop of a residential or commercial building or structure. The various components of such a system include photovoltaic modules, mounting systems, cables, solar inverters and other electrical accessories.
Clean Power Finance, headquartered in San Francisco, California, is a financial services and software company for the residential solar industry.
Solar power in Connecticut establishes Connecticut as the second state in the US to reach grid parity, after Hawaii, due to the high average cost of electricity. Installing solar panels for a home provides an estimated 15.6% return on investment.
Solar power in Michigan has been growing in recent years due to new technological improvements, falling solar prices and a variety of regulatory actions and financial incentives. The largest solar farm in Michigan is Assembly Solar, completed in 2022, which has 347 MW of capacity. Small-scale solar provided 50% of Michigan solar electricity as recently as 2020 but multiple solar farms in the 100 MW to 200 MW range are proposed to be completed by the middle of the decade. Although among the lowest U.S. states for solar irradiance, Michigan mostly lies farther south than Germany where solar power is heavily deployed. Michigan is expected to use 120 TWh per year in 2030. To reach a 100% solar electrical grid would require 2.4% of Michigan's land area to host 108 GW of installed capacity.
Solar power in North Dakota has been a little-used resource. The state ranks last on installed solar power in the United States, with .47 MW of installed capacity. Solar on rooftops can provide 24.6% of all electricity used in North Dakota from 3,300 MW of solar panels. The most cost effective application for solar panels is for pumping water at remote wells where solar panels can be installed for $800 vs. running power lines for $15,000/mile.
Solar power in Maryland is supported by the state's legislation regarding the Renewable Portfolio Standard and Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SREC) program. The target for renewable energy as of 2017 is 20% by 2020, including 2% from solar power.
Solar power in Denmark amounts to 3,490 MW of grid-connected PV capacity at the end of September 2023, and contributes to a goal to use 100% renewable energy by 2050 and 100% renewable electricity by 2030. Solar power met 6.1% of Danish electricity demand in 2022, the highest share in the Nordic countries.
