Solar Energy Technologies

Solar energy is a major renewable energy source with the potential to meet many of the challenges facing the world. Solar energy¿power from the sun¿is a vast, inexhaustible, and clean resource. Sunlight, or solar energy, can be used directly for heating and lighting homes and businesses, for generating electricity, and for hot water heating, solar cooling, and a variety of other commercial and industrial uses. Many technologies have been developed to make use of solar radiation. Some of these technologies make direct use of the solar energy (e.g. to provide light, heat, etc.), while others produce electricity. Solar energy is used today in a number of ways: as heat for making hot water, heating buildings, and cooking, to generate electricity with solar cells or heat engines, to take the salt away from sea water, to use sun rays for drying clothes and towels, to use cooking solar cookers and it is used by plants for the process of photosynthesis.