16 Solar Self-Check

Put your brainpower to the test with our solar energy quiz!
http://energy.gov/articles/quiz-test-your-solar-iq
Government information at DOE websites is in the public domain.

a. 173 terawatts
b. 1.73 terawatts
c. 17,300 terawatts
d. 173,000 terawatts

Solar energy is the most abundant energy source on the
planet. Enough sunlight hits the Earth's surface in 1 1/2 hours
to power the entire world's electricity consumption for a year!

a. 5.5%
b. 13.6%
c. 29.4%
d. 7.2%

While solar accounts for less than 2% of U.S. electrical
generating capacity overall, it is one of the fastest-growing
energy markets in the country. With solar power continuing
to get more affordable and new installations happening every
day, the solar industry is booming. For the first time, more
solar generating capacity was added in 2015 than natural gas
in the U.S. (Source: FERC)

a. California
b. Arizona
c. Texas
d. Florida

In 2014, California became the first state to generate more than 5
percent of its annual utility-scale electricity from solar power,
according to the Energy Information Administration. With several
large solar plants phased into operation in 2014, California's
utility-scale (1 megawatt or larger) facilities generated a record 9.9
million megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity in 2014, an increase of
6.1 million MWh from 2013 and more than three times the output
of the next-highest state, Arizona. In total, nearly 1,900 MW of new
utility-scale solar capacity was added, bringing the state's utility-
scale capacity for all solar technologies to 5,400 MW by the end of
2014.

a. Sun-powered
b. Light-cells
c. Light-electricity
d. Solar-energy

"Photovoltaic" has two parts: photo, derived from the Greek
word for light, and volt, from electricity pioneer Alessandro
Volta. And that's exactly what photovoltaic systems do -- turn
light into electricity!

a. American physicist Enrico
Fermi
b. Italian physicist Alessandro
Volta
c. German physicist Heinrich
Rudolf Hertz
d. French physicist Edmond
Becquerel

Edmond Becquerel was the first person to realize that sunlight
could produce an electric current in a solid material in 1839,
but it took more than a century for scientists to fully
understand this process and develop a practical solar cell.

a. Organic cells
b. Plastic cells
c. Polymer cells
d. Crystalline silicon cells

Unveiled by Bell Labs in 1954, silicon cells were the very first
successful photovoltaic (PV) technology, and they remain the
most common PV cells in use today.

a. 40%
b. 80%
c. 20%
d. 60%

Thanks in part to research funded by the Energy
Department's SunShot Initiative, photovoltaic solar panels
have gotten dramatically cheaper over the past decade.
SunShot was created with the aim of making solar power
cost-competitive with fossil fuels by 2020, and it has made
significant strides toward that goal by supporting the
development of more efficient solar cells and cost-effective
manufacturing processes.

a. Connection fees
b. Labor
c. Permits
d. Solar panels

Today, soft costs -- that is, all the costs and fees aside from
the solar hardware itself -- account for more than half of the
price of installing a solar energy system. By taking steps to
help reduce soft costs, the Department of Energy is working
to make affordable solar power a reality for those who want
it.

a. Static
b. Chemical
c. Thermal
d. Magnetic

Concentrating solar power technologies use mirrors to reflect
and concentrate sunlight onto receivers that collect solar
energy and convert it to heat. This thermal energy can then
be used to produce electricity via a steam turbine or heat
engine that drives a generator.

a. Power tower
b. Linear Fresnel
c. Cathode ray tube
d. Parabolic trough

Parabolic trough, linear fresnel and power tower are all types
of concentrating solar power systems. They may look very
different, but they operate on the same principle, focusing the
sun's rays on a central receiver.

a. 350,000
b. 3500
c. 350
d. 35,000

Spanning 3,500 acres of Southern California desert, Ivanpah's
173,500 "heliostats" (each made up of two mirrors) focus the
sun's rays on three 459-foot-tall, heat-collecting "power
towers." Water circulated through these towers turns to
steam, driving turbines that can generate up to 377
megawatts of electricity -- enough to power 140,000 homes
in California!

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16 Solar Self-Check

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