The other way of using sunlight is to collect the heat that the suns light causes when it strikes objects. Solar heating is a very good way to use the suns energy. Solar panels work well, but their efficiency is low. Better panels are being developed with higher efficiencies and more ruggedness.
You will find a great little tutorial on solar electric panels here. There is a good tutorial on solar home heating here. Here is a page about solar water heating. This link has a very neat small solar water pasteurizer made from recyled material.
At this time, here at the center, we have several solar systems. There is a small renewable energy power house on site. All the materials for the power house are recycled. All the electronics, including the panel and batteries, are used. The only new item in the house is the charge controller.
The left hand door is a little compartment where the garden tools are stored. The right hand door opens into the power room. You can see the fifty watt solar panel on the roof. The electricity from this panel is fed down to a 300 watt charge controller. There are two large deep cycle six volt batteries in series, giving twelve volts, in the house. These are fed to a 400 watt inverter with a switch. When darkness falls, the switch is turned on and there is light in the main house. Here is a view into the power room, showing the equipment.
There are also some glass matt batteries in the main house which are portable. These batteries are manually carried to the power house when they need to be charged. There is a 130 watt inverter on a switch inside the main house. When it is stormy and raining and cold, we don't have to go out to the power house and turn on the switch. We can get several hours of evening and morning light from the batteries inside the main house. Very handy.
The single fifty watt panel provides all the light needed at this time. If there were more people, there would need to be more panels installed. It also powers my portable DVD player and my laptop computer. The laptop will run about two hours from the one panel, in addition to using the lights. More panels will give enough electricity that the only thing on the grid will be the refrigerator.
We also use a small one watt solar panel to charge up small rechargable batteries for various uses, such as an FM radio.
There is an additional solar lighting system. This system is so simple, it is a dream. It consists of those little shove-in-the-ground solar garden and flood lights. I have done extensive experiments with these little lights. The floodlights give out enough light for the uses I have. Plus there is no installation. Just let the sun charge them up in the day, bring them in at night and turn the switch on when you need light. They need very minimal maintenance or fuss. I am beginning to use these lights more and more in order to conserve the 50 watt panel electricity for computing needs. Here is a page of instructions for solar lighting. It details all the systems we have done here at the center for lights. It has a lot more detail and instructions for solar lighting.
We are in the process of constructing a solar water heater for domestic hot water. It will be detailed more fully as we progress on it.
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