Human energy

consumption

•Energy supply is a central factor for human

well-being, economic development and the
alleviation of hunger. An ongoing and pressing
problem for global development is ensuring
that everybody has access to energy.
Renewables energy displace 'dirty' fossil fuels in the energy market, benefiting
through lower carbon emissions and other types of pollution. Though not all
the energy sources sold as "renewable" are environmentally sustainable.
When contemplating the effect on biodiversity, climate change, and other
problems, biomass and massive hydroelectric dams make challenging
tradeoffs.
 Photovoltaics, a technology that uses thin films of
Solar semiconductors to transform sunlight into electricity, has
been the subject of active research over the past 20 years
irradiance and has attracted increased interest from the industrial
sector in recent years.
Working principle of Photovoltaic

The transformation of light energy

into electricity is based on a process
known as the photovoltaic effect. As
semiconductor materials are exposed
to light, the semiconductor crystal
absorbs some of the light-ray photons,
which creates a large number of free
electrons in the crystal. This is the
fundamental reason photovoltaic
.effect generates electricity
Manufacture of silicon photovoltaics

Most of the new entrants and established expansions in the

capacity of the producers are based on monocrystalline
silicon provided by the Czochralski process (Cz) or on
polycrystalline silicon by casting solar electricity
generation is a large area application, it is likely the PV
industry will eventually use more silicon than even the
integrated-circuits (IC) industry
 The P-N junction

A large-area p-n junction made from silicon is configured as the most widely known solar cell. One can imagine,
as a simplification, putting a layer of n-type silicon into direct contact with a layer of p-type silicone. P-n
junctions of silicon solar cells are not made in this manner in nature, but rather by spreading an n-type dopant
.through one side of a p-type wafer (or vice versa)
Operating Condition

If a piece of p-type silicon is placed in

close contact with a piece of n-type
silicon, then a diffusion of electrons
occurs from the region of high electron
concentration (the n-type side of the
junction) into the region of low electron
concentration (p-type side of the
.junction)