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Researchers Improve Solar Cell Performance
Vegematic writes "Researchers at MIT have improved solar collectors using dyes. They just increased their performance results by a factor of 4. These paint-on materials can increase the power obtained from existing solar cells by a factor of over 40 without needing to track the sun. 'By collecting light over their full surface and concentrating it at their edges, these devices reduce the required area of solar cells and consequently, the cost of solar power. Stacking multiple concentrators allows the optimization of solar cells at each wavelength, increasing the overall power output.' There is also a shorter FAQ available."
You know, when they post another story about the incredible discoveries in solar power that seem to never actually make it to those of us who would be interested if it was cheaper and more efficient..... Show me a company that is already selling this stuff and then I'll be interested.
RTFG - Read The F#$%ing Google!
Then I'll be real interested.
uhh... you just need to make their life time long enough to do that.
At present, all the solar generating plants in the world use mirrors to concentrate the sunlight on the solar cells, thereby greatly increasing performance.
Only the ones in areas with few clouds. Of course those places are best for solar anyway, but for the rest there's this new technology.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Go to science.com and read the actual research paper from the MIT team before blasting their work.
The method collects sunlight from a larger area and concentrates it on solar cells in a smaller area, meaning you can get more power with fewer solar cells. So the way to get "500% efficient" solar panels would be to extract, say, 20% of the sun's energy hitting an area, with only 4% of that area covered by actual solar cells, with concentrators to collect the sunlight from a larger area and directing it to the cells.
It is pretty likely there will be an inflection point. At the moment, my take is that the subsidized pay off period is still pushing 20 years, so solar is pretty much only any good if you are rich and don't like it when your power goes away, or if you want to live really far from the grid. When the unsubsidized payback hits 10 years, Joe-dumbass is going to be screwing up an installation on his garage, driving the payback time even lower.
Up until the inflection point, nothing will seem to make a difference. Afterwords, it will be like "what took so long and where did all those things come from".
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
This won't work for the same reason that interior paint won't last on the outside of your house. Interior paints use organic dyes, just like this MIT concentrator. To the great frustration of the paint industry, organic dyes just do not last in sunlight: the molecules breakdown.
Similar solar concentrator concepts have been looked for three decades (look up, for example, Prof. Reisfeld's work at Hebrew University) and have not yet made it out of the lab.
There is a glut of new and exciting ways to bounce light. We have lenses and fresnel mirrors in conical or linear; funnel mirrors, holograms, diffraction grates, and concentric funnel mirrors. (I am the very picture of a modern...)
I think we've safely reached the point where novel can no longer be consider a useful parameter.
What is the cost - and what is the efficiency? longevity etc ...
At some level, we find ourselves on a Titanic, and in need of a solution to a problem with significant time and resource constraints.
I submit that this proposal, like so many in the same camp, does more to run out the clock, than it does to advance the ball.
EPRI has reported that Heliostats with salt storage and steam power is the least expensive means to a post-oil world. Unless this technology can demonstrate some advantage relative to the gold standard; I think its noise.
To your point, there is no real market for neighborhood solar; and there is no social benefit for wasting tax dollars on roof-toys - or anything other than the best-of-breed solutions.
AIK