[Felicia]

Felicia asked the Naked Scientists:
   
Is solar energy same as light energy?

What do you think?

[Geezer]

Not entirely. A lot of the energy radiated by the Sun is in the form of "light", i.e. it is visible to humans. But a lot of the energy is invisible to us, because its frequency is outside the visible light spectrum.

[robertjhon143]

solar energy is not the same as light energy.yes i am agree with Geezer

[Blunt Zhou]

The two are definitely different. Solar light is more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly than ordinary lighting, and the lighting is brighter.

[evan_au]

its frequency is outside the visible light spectrum

SIlicon solar cells with a bandgap around 0.7V are able to produce useful energy from infra-red photons with energy above 0.7eV.

The extra energy in visible photons is actually wasted by Silicon solar cells. Higher efficiencies have been achieved by directing higher-energy photons to a different semiconductor with a larger bandgap, producing "tandem" solar cells with a total efficiency of over 35%.

But a lot of the (Sun's) energy is invisible to us

The Sun's electromagnetic emissions also occur in infra-red and ultraviolet (with some in X-Rays and radio waves). Calculations suggest that it takes around a million years for this energy to percolate from the nuclear furnace in the center to the visible surface that we see.

But there is a about 3% of the Sun's radiation which is not in the form of electromagnetism at all, but in the form of neutrinos.

These are not blocked by the Sun's incredibly dense core, and reach the Sun's surface in about 1 second - and hit the Earth about 8 minutes later. There are enough that interact with matter that we can actually detect that they are present. But they interact with matter so weakly that nearly all go straight through our solar cells, and indeed straight through the whole Earth, and we can't use them to generate useful energy.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_neutrino

[Bored chemist]

Is there a facility for removing the "marked as best answer" highlighting?