Animations
These animations explain solar technologies and capabilities at the national laboratories.
Process Development and Integration Laboratory
This video provides a narrated animation that explains the process development and integration approach being used at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The video shows how this research approach is implemented in the Process Development and Integration Laboratory.
Sunlight to Electricity
This one-minute animated video shows how a solar cell converts sunlight into electricity.
(Note: early in the video, you'll hear the statement, "Every minute, enough of this [sunlight] energy reaches the Earth to meet the world's energy demand for a whole year." This statement is misleading if specific assumptions are not considered. A more accurate general statement is that "every hour enough of this energy...".)
We have provided the animation in Quicktime and MPEG multimedia formats.
QuickTime format:
(free QuickTime plug-in)
- small video, 180x135 (QuickTime 7.9 MB)
- large video, 240x180 (QuickTime 11.4 MB)
MPEG format:
- small video (MPEG 14.8 MB)
- large video (MPEG 26.5 MB)
Text version (TXT 1 KB)
Distributed Energy Resources
This video discusses the challenges, benefits, and technologies of distributed energy. Distributed energy, such as solar, refers to power-generating technologies that are placed at or near where the energy is consumed.