Solar power has long held the promise of unlimited potential energy for those who have the means to collect and store the sun’s bounty. The efforts of leading countries in the world in the development of photovoltaic solar panel systems, in reducing manufacturing costs, and incentivizing expansion of the industry has seen tremendous gains in terms of energy production and the shift to renewable energies. Complementing these efforts are those of Green Empowerment whose overall mission includes bringing electricity access to the roughly 1.2 billion people in the world living without.
Photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems represented by the standard solar panels that most people are familiar with make up the majority of the total solar production in the world market. This is followed by concentrated solar thermal power (CSP), which uses mirrors to concentrate light on an area which converts heat to electricity in a heat engine. |
Among the leaders in production are China, the United States, Japan, India, and the United Kingdom, increasing gigawatt (GW) capacity the most. China alone added 34.5 GW of capacity in 2016, followed by the United States who added 14.8 GW capacity in 2016. These efforts brought the total capacity increase for that year to 75 GW which would be the equivalent of adding 31,000 solar panels per hour. These increases furthered the world total capacity to 303 GW of solar power, a substantial gain.
Away from the headlines in the solar power industry are organizations like Green Empowerment who operates in nations of the developing world with financial partners making microloans available to people living in rural areas towards the purchase of PV solar systems. Green Empowerment works in Ecuador to make passive solar dryers and bio-digesters available to people living in the countryside. In Nicaragua and Myanmar, solar panels are brought to rural communities and installed on schools and hospitals.
Away from the headlines in the solar power industry are organizations like Green Empowerment who operates in nations of the developing world with financial partners making microloans available to people living in rural areas towards the purchase of PV solar systems. Green Empowerment works in Ecuador to make passive solar dryers and bio-digesters available to people living in the countryside. In Nicaragua and Myanmar, solar panels are brought to rural communities and installed on schools and hospitals.