My Essay Point

Advantages and disadvantages of solar energy

Solar energy is one of the most beneficial sustainable forms of energy that human beings can use for a variety of purposes. It is a thoroughly renewable form of energy and can be used by the entire human race till the end of time. There are several different uses of solar energy in our day to day life, such as cooking food in solar cookers, using solar energy for generating electricity as well as heating waters in large reservoirs for saving electricity and resources. It is a very simple technology which can cut short on the cost of energy consumption and make the earth a better place for us to live in.

Pros and cons of solar energy:

Advantages of solar energy

  • Solar energy is available for absolutely free of cost. Even though there are equipment and devices required for the generation of solar energy from the rays of sun, the cost is very low as compared to what we spend on fulfilling our energy needs.
  • One of the advantages of solar energy is that it can be used in the rural and remote areas as well. In these places, it is usually very expensive to deploy the electricity power grids and solar energy can be generated in ample amount here.
  • Solar energy can be extensively used for the purpose of charging devices which consume very little amount of energy, such as calculators and solar cell batteries.
  • This is probably the greatest benefit of using solar energy that it does not cause any kind of pollution. Even though the equipment, collectors and devices used are manufactured in big factories, there is no pollution generated during the process of generating solar energy from the heat coming from the rays of sun.
  • Solar energy is an infinite source of energy and we will never run out of it till the end of the world. On the other hand, other resources and oil reserves will last for as long as 40-50 years from now.
  • Solar energy is a renewable source of energy which can never get out of stock.

Also read: Biotechnology: pros and cons

Disadvantages of solar energy

  • Solar energy can only be harnessed for various activities during the daytime when there is ample sunlight available.
  • The cost of deploying panels, collectors as well as solar cells for the generation of solar energy is very high and the manufacturing cost of the collectors and devices is also quite high.
  • Even though solar power stations are easy to build but the amount of energy harnessed here is very less in output as compared to the conventional power stations of the same capacity.
  • There are large acres of land required for the deployment of solar energy plants and for capturing the energy coming from sun. Large collectors are arranged together with each other so as to gather huge amount of energy.
  • In places when there is no ample amount of solar energy available, it is very difficult to produce electricity from sun’s energy.

Conclusion:

As we can see, solar energy is really the future for us. Although it has few cons, but these can be overcome easily with the advancement in technology. Our governments need to invest more in solar energy so that new technologies like smaller panels and collectors which won’t require much space could be invented.

Essay submitted by high school student Maria.