The amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth every hour contains enough energy to meet the world’s energy demand for an entire year. As a global leader in energy efficiency and sustainability, Johnson Controls wants to help you harness a portion of the sun’s energy to help you meet your energy needs using this most renewable of resources.

Solar energy can be converted indirectly (thermal solar) into heat through thermal collectors. The resulting heat can reduce, or possibly eliminate, the need for water heaters.

Solar thermal energy is created by absorbing the heat of the sun with collecting devices such as flat-plate solar-energy collectors. Air or a heat collecting fluid passes through tubes within the collecting devices where it is warmed and then distributed to the appropriate heating system. Solar thermal power plants take the heated fluid process one step forward through the use of a heat transfer system to produce steam. The steam can then be converted into mechanical energy in a turbine, and into electricity from a conventional generator coupled to the turbine.