Solar Energy for sustainable development in developing countries

Abstract

Sustainable development is the important gift that we can leave for our future generations. It is of vital importance to develop different types of renewable energy sources including solar, wind, hydro, biomass, geothermal and hydrogen gas to supply the energy needed for sustainable development in a country. Among these, Solar Energy has been identified as one of the promising renewable energy sources which has the potential to meet the future energy demand in developing countries like Sri Lanka.. To achieve this, solar energy can be harnessed either by generating electricity using solar panels (solar photovoltaic or PV) or directly by using solar thermal effect to generate heat.