Solar Panels
High quality Solar panels in South Africa. These panels are designed for off-grid and rooftop applications Our panels achieve or exceed their nominal power. Solar panels are devices that convert light into electricity. They are called “solar” panels because most of the time, the most powerful source of light available is the Sun, called Sol by astronomers. Some scientists call them photovoltaics which means, basically, “light-electricity.”
The amount of power available to a solar panel is proportional to the amount of light that reaches it. The more light it gets, the more power it produces. In space, the most important source of light is the Sun. The Sun emits just about the same amount of light in all directions. When solar panels are pointed right at the Sun (or aligned with the Sun), then they intercept the most light rays.
To get the most power, solar panels have to be pointed directly at the Sun. DS1 is built so that the panels can be pivoted as DS1 moves. Thus, they can always stay in the direct path of the light rays no matter how the spacecraft is pointed. A solar panel is a collection of solar cells. Lots of small solar cells spread over a large area can work together to provide enough power to be useful. The more light that hits a cell, the more electricity it produces, so spacecraft are usually designed with solar panels that can always be pointed at the Sun even as the rest of the body of the spacecraft moves around, much as a tank turret can be aimed independently of where the tank is
