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

[vsage3]

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

For a constant temperature, efficiency goes up logarithmically with light concentration. A solar cell with 1 sun on it is going to be less efficient than one with 500 suns on it assuming you have a way to cool the cells. Past a certain point the efficiency drops like a rock due to lack of cooling the cells and this reduces the voltage you can produce by about 2.3mV/C past room temp.

Re:"Cheaper" Power Cells

[John Hasler]

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.