All The Pretty Colors.

This week in class we examined teeny tiny solar panels, also known as photovoltaics.

I did not know an awful lot about photovoltaics, but here’s what we’re basically talking about:

Admittedly this is a particularly picturesque view of photovoltaic panels. I don’t know where this little house is, but I totally want to own it someday.

Oh and the panel we used was about 3″ by 4.”

So the experiment examined the different ways that the photovoltaic panel absorbs light. We tried placing a light close to the panel at first, and then measured the absorption. We then moved the light further and further from the panel. We reran the computer tests, and recorded how effective the photovoltaic was. Here are the results:(take a look at the top graph)

Voltage Readings & Color Bar Chart

Turns out, the closer the light was to the photovoltaic, the more power was generated. (Not much of a surprise there.)

Next we took colored lenses and placed them over the photovoltaic. This changed the color of the light that filtered through. This is important because as we know that colors fall along different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. Therefore, some colors have more energy than others. We measured this concept using the photovoltaic panel. If you look once again at the graph entitled “Color Lenses v. No Color” you can see that the only color used that came close to (and slightly surpassed) the white light (all colors) absorption was the neon green lens.

The colors dark blue and medium gray were not nearly as effective in providing energy. I suspect that if we had used either a red or orange lens, the rates of absorption might have changed once again. This information is important because it helps us know that there are certain wavelengths of light that make the photovoltaic more effective and therefore a better, more practical power source.