As technology progresses, scientists and engineers discover ever more efficient methods of creating sustainable alternative resources. Polaris Energy, a private equity firm based in Luxembourg, makes investments in green markets such as biofuels, wind power, geothermal energy, and photovoltaics.
One of the most recently developed methods of creating renewable energy, photovoltaics is the process of converting light into electricity at an atomic level. The method utilizes materials that exhibit a photoelectric effect, a property that causes the materials to absorb photons of light and release electrons; the photovoltaic process captures these free electrons, transferring them between different brands within the material, resulting in an electric current.
While the process only recently became a widely used power-generation technology, the first photovoltaic module was built by Bell Laboratories in 1954, after French physicist Edmund Bequerel discovered the photoelectric effect in 1839. The photovoltaic technology utilized today is based on the nature of light first described by Albert Einstein in 1905. The space programs of the 1960s helped advance the technology and reduce the cost of creating photovoltaic modules; its usefulness was further bolstered by the energy crisis of the 1970s.
The best known photovoltaic process involves using solar cells to convert sunlight into an electron flow. Because the electrical current is produced directly, solar cells can be used to recharge batteries or power electronic equipment for everything from satellites orbiting in space to cars, houses, parking meters, and emergency roadside telephones. Other uses for photovoltaics include powering essential tools in rural, “off the grid” areas in developing countries, such as Cuba and India, where many villages are often located too far from a major city to receive any of its electricity.
Photovoltaic production has been rising by more than 20 percent every year since 2002, making it the fastest growing energy technology in the world.
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