People are in dilemma whether solar panel is operational at night or no. The answer to this question is no. This system works only in the daytime. The reason is the sun. Sun plays an important role here. Solar Panels take the energy from the sun. Then it converts this energy into electricity. But it is not like that these Solar Panels are inefficient to power our home at night. It can give power both in the night and in the day.
WORKING OF SOLAR PANEL
Solar panel consist of many Solar cells. These solar cells can generate electricity. They consist of semi conductive material, namely Silicon. Silicon is not a good category of a conductor. Sun gives solar energy. This is a renewable source. This solar energy comes in the form of energy packets. These energy packets are well known as photons. These energy packets strike the solar cells. This dislodging of the electron happens. This in turn makes an electron space. The electron tries to cover the space. But the electric field tries to turn this space on the positive side. And try to turn the free electron in the negative direction. After that, the electron has to cover a long path in order to get returns back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy
In the photovoltaic system, these moving electrons are the current. Electric voltage is formed. This is the voltage. From the solar cells, electricity comes out. And this is from the solar panels only. This gives power to our home. If there is no sun, then there will be no dislodging of the electron from its comfortable state. It means that there will be no flowing of the electrons. If no flowing of current, then no current will be there. It means no power to our home.
LIGHT FROM THE OTHER SOURCES
Light is a must for the solar panel to work. Even at night, different sources of light are there. They may be the moon, streetlights, etc. Moon is also one of the sources of light. So a question may come to our mind that whether these sources of light can run our solar panels or not. Technically it should run. Actually, this moon gets its light from the dun itself. This moonlight is just the reflection of the sun’s light. But the intensity of this moonlight is very less as compared to the sunlight. This much of the moonlight is not enough to function our solar system. The exact same thing happens with the other source of lights also. They are not strong enough. They cannot generate electricity.
Extraction of solar energy is possible only during the daytime. But then how can be used this solar energy at both the time day and night. So we need a kind of energy reservoir. This solar system takes the solar energy in more amount during the daytime. Then storing this extra solar energy in the grid happens. During the night, this grid supplies the energy. In some solar systems, the grid is there. And in some batteries are there. Excess solar energy stores in these batteries.
CONCLUSION
For the solar system, the sun is the sole source of the energy. This system can supply the power to our home during the day as well as during the night.
