The earth receives more than enough energy from the sun in an hour to supply the worlds energy requirement for the whole year.
Unfortunately, only a tiny portion of it is harnessed and the world still relies on power plants that burn fossil fuels. The good thing, though, is that there is a constant increase in demand for solar energy; and over the years of continuous development, solar panels are much cheaper today.
During peak hours, the maximum power density that the sun can give is about 1kW per square meter. In other words, one square meter of solar panel can produce as much as 100 GWh (gigawatt hours) of electricity in one year. That is enough to power 50,000 houses.
If a solar power plant is build on 1% of the total land area of the Sahara desert, it will satisfy the worlds energy requirement.
The efficiency of solar panels depends on several factors such as pollution, clouds, temperature and atmospheric humidity.
Solar power plants are very similar to other conventional power plants with one significant difference: The majority of power plants draw their power from fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas.
When power plants burn...