Building, Home, Solar Power, Building Materials
What does energy conversion efficiency mean?
Energy conversion efficiency is an expression of the amount of energy produced in proportion to the amount of energy consumed, or available to a device. The sun produces a lot of energy in a wide light spectrum, but we have so far learned to capture only small portions of that spectrum and convert them to electricity using photovoltaic's. So, today's commercial PV systems are about 7% to 28% efficient, which might seem low. The federal government and private companies all around the world are working on ways to convert more of the sun's energy in sunlight to usable energy and increase the efficiency of solar PV systems. Some military and space solar panels now convert nearly 48% of the energy in light to electricity.