• Question: Is'nt solar power not very reliable? Could'nt all the food go off if it is cloudy?

    Asked by codecompass to Becky on 13 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Becky Selwyn

      Becky Selwyn answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      That is a good question!

      In the UK we have a lot of cloudy days, so using the sun to power a fridge probably isn’t a good idea. But in other countries where the sun shines a lot more every day we would have the same problem at night time.

      So what we need to do is heat up something that can be stored and used when it is dark or cloudy. If we use the sun to heat up some water and then store the water in a big insulated tank (so that it stays hot), we could use the heat from the water to power refrigeration, instead of taking it directly from the sun.

      In the UK we could also use heat from something else (like maybe waste heat from a power station) to power the refrigeration, so it is still possible.

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