20 Terms
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Solar power
Solar power is the conversion of sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV), or indirectly using concentrated solar power (CSP). Concentrated solar power systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. Photovoltaics convert light into electric current using the photoelectric effect.
Industry: Energy
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Solar power
photovoltaic (PV) system
Energy; Solar power
A complete set of components for converting sunlight into electricity by the photovoltaic process, including the array and balance of system components.
photovoltaic-thermal (pv/t) system
Energy; Solar power
A photovoltaic system that, in addition to converting sunlight into electricity, collects the residual heat energy and delivers both heat and electricity in usable form. Also called a total energy ...
amorphous semiconductor
Energy; Solar power
A non-crystalline semiconductor material that has no long-range order.
physical vapor deposition
Energy; Solar power
A method of depositing thin semiconductor photovoltaic films. With this method, physical processes, such as thermal evaporation or bombardment of ions, are used to deposit elemental semiconductor ...
amorphous silicon
Energy; Solar power
A thin-film, silicon photovoltaic cell having no crystalline structure. Manufactured by depositing layers of doped silicon on a substrate. See also single-crystal silicon an polycrystalline silicon.
p-i-n
Energy; Solar power
A semiconductor photovoltaic (PV) device structure that layers an intrinsic semiconductor between a p-type semiconductor and an n-type semiconductor; this structure is most often used with amorphous ...
