Most of the times, people call us for a Solar Water Heater installation, thinking that they should call a Solar company for the same. However there are two different form of energy coming from the Sun- One is photons (Useful for Solar Photovoltaic effect) and second is infrared rays (Useful for heating purposes)

How Solar energy is used to generate Electricity/Photoelectric effect?

Photons are the energy particles present in the visible light bandwidth of the sun rays falling at any point on Earth. This energy of photons is utilized inside a Solar cell to energize any electron in the outer orbital of the fused (added impurities like Phosphorous[Atomic Number 15] and Boron[Atomic number 5]) Silicon[Atomic number 14] semiconductor and this photovoltaic effect helps generate electricity from Solar radiations in the form of photons.

How Solar rays are used to heat water in a Solar Water Heater/Collector?

A Solar water heater or a collector basically uses the infrared rays coming from the Sun and uses of it to heat the oil underneath the Solar collector. The heated oil comes in contact with the water inside a Heat exchanger and hence the water gets heated at temperatures around 45 ° C. However, this technology is not much successful because of non availability of soft water (At most of the places, the water is hard and it makes the maintenance of the Solar water heater difficult).