Optical Concentrator To Make Solar Power Cheaper

Al writes "Researchers at a company called Morgan Solar have developed a simple solar concentrator that promises to cut the cost of solar energy. The Light-Guide Solar Optic (LSO) consists of a specially-molded acrylic optic that traps light and guides it toward its center using total internal reflection. At the middle of the concentrator another optic made of glass receives the incoming light, amplifies it and directs it toward a small solar cell at the very center of the device. Unlike other concentrators, the light doesn't leave the optic before striking a solar cell so there's no air gap, and there's no chance of fragile components being knocked out of alignment. This could significantly reduce the cost of manufacturing this type of solar cell."

Comments

Cool

[Hatta]

That's actually pretty cool. By concentrating the light, they need less photovoltaic material per square foot of land used for solar. I'm curious how the efficiency of photovoltaic cells varies with the concentration of light. Will 1 square foot of sunlight concentrated into a few square inches of photovoltaic cells produce as much power as 1 square foot of unconcentrated photovoltaic cells?

Re:Cool

[Skapare]

The efficiency actually goes up relative to PV material in straight unmagnified sunlight. I'm sure there's a saturation point where that stops. This is one reason concentrating light on PV is a plus. Of course, the other is that it involves less PV material cost.

neat idea. What do they do with the heat though?

[Almost-Retired]

Neat idea, but how do they get rid of the heat of 1000 suns? Does the IR escape because it isn't reflected the same way?

It's just a fresnel lens

[Matt Perry]

From the picture, it looks a lot like a fresnel lens.

transmission lines

[bcrowell]

I live in LA. To the east of us is the Mojave Desert, and there's already quite a bit of solar power out there right now. The big issue is transmission lines to get the energy from the Mojave to LA. Building transmission lines requires political action, and that's slow and uncertain because of NIMBY. I have photovoltaics on my roof, but objectively, if you look at the price of land where I live versus the price of land in the Mojave Desert, it's pretty clear where you should be building these things.

Re:neat idea. What do they do with the heat though

[mh1997]

Neat idea, but how do they get rid of the heat of 1000 suns?

They keep them in the dark so they don't get hot.

or from wikipedia:

The solar cells require high-capacity heat sinks to prevent thermal destruction and to manage temperature related performance losses...In May 2008, IBM demonstrated a prototype CPV using computer chip cooling techniques to achieve an energy density of 2300 suns.

waste heat

[zogger]

Or use the waste heat to drive a stirling engine as a booster perhaps. I know just regular solar panels get wicked hot on the backs of them when sitting in full direct sun, I mean it is black stuff sitting behind a clear surface and stuck on a metal backing, it gets *hot*. Just doubling that heat would turn it into some sort of decent viable optional energy source.

And why PV? Instant electricity from it, solid state, no moving parts, pretty spiffy stuff. Big solar concentrators with turbines are cool too, we have those for giant megawatt scale production now, but we don't have them for joe homeowner yet or joe back packer, PV fits the bill for those purposes.