Slashdot Mirror
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."
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?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The original concept here is flat fiberoptics-like lens, so you can transport more concentrators in the same space and there will be no misalignment during assembly, because small pv cell is glued onto back of these lens, not held at a distance.
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
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?
From the picture, it looks a lot like a fresnel lens.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
... about concentrating solar power.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
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.
Find free books.
It's TFA's fault, but even so.
There is no "amplification" taking place at all, merely concentration. Those are two VERY different things.
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.
Because they used to be insanely, ridiculously, incredibly damned expensive. Now they are merely damned expensive. In a decade or so they will be down to expensive. Someday they will be cheap, but the sun may go out first.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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.