Solar Photovoltaic Technology—A Review

Global environmental concerns and the escalating demand for energy, coupled with steady progress in renewable energy technologies, are opening up new opportunities for utilization of renewable energy resources. Solar energy is the most abundant, inexhaustible and clean of all the renewable energy resources till date. The power from sun intercepted by the earth is many times larger than the present rate of all the energy consumption. Solar Photovoltaic Technology is one of the finest ways to harness the solar power.. A significant amount of research and development work on the Solar Photovoltaic Technology has been done since the 1970s after the major energy crisis in the world. Many innovative systems and products have been put forward and their quality evaluated by academics and professionals. In the modern era renewable energy generation technologies have broad societal impact and need to be assessed considering multiple perspectives including: social, technological, economic, environmental, and political. Assessment of energy technologies is a complex process because it is based on multiple criteria and multiple decision makers, and usually requires analytical models. Recent developments suggest that thin film crystalline silicon is becoming a material for future. This paper reviews the photovoltaic technology, its power generating capability, its environmental aspect coupled with a variety of its applications.