ABSTRACT
The sun is the most abundant energy resource that we have available and delivers about 885 million terawatt hours (TWh) per year to the surface of the Earth. This is more than 5600 times the world's total energy consumption in 2012, according to the International Energy Agency. One of the beauties of solar power is the ability to be decentralized, i.e., installed in locations where it is economically and socially desired. This is particularly important in large countries with sparse population and in isolated areas where the cost of building and maintaining a large energy distribution network is too high. Offices and other places of work, particularly factories, use electricity mostly during the day, thus having a high degree of self-consumption. For energy storage on a larger scale, many more options are available. In hilly areas, the power can be used to pump water to a lake on a hilltop and recover energy later using a hydroelectric plant.
