An electric solar energy system: Capture, storage, and usage of energy
in an electric system
| Electric systems play an important role in our technically oriented societies. Electricity and electrical energy are used to drive engines and devices ranging from train engines, to large pumping systems, to lamps and computers. To provide society with electricity, we mostly use thermal power plants powered by coal and oil or by nuclear fission. A smaller part of electrical energy world-wide is provided by water power. A system that drives electric processes directly from renewable resources is photovoltaics. Photovoltaic cells absorb the light of the Sun, set up a voltage and drive electric currents. Once energy is provided with electricity, it is not easy to store since electric charge is hard to store. One possibility (so far for relatively small scale applications) is storage of charge and energy in electric capacitors. How does such a system (including the end user) work? To provide some answers, you should design, experiment with, model and simulate a simple system where capacitors are charged with photovoltaic cells, and the capacitors provide electricity for a simple user such as a lamp.
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