Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

IBM Solar Concentrator Can Produce12kW/day, Clean Water, and AC

Posted by samzenpus on from the all-in-one dept.

Lucas123 writes IBM Research and Switzerland-based Airlight Energy today announced a parabolic dish that increases the sun's radiation by 2,000 times while also producing fresh water and air conditioning. The new Concentrator PhotoVoltaics (CPV) system uses a dense array of water-cooled solar chips that can convert 80% of the sun's radiation into useful energy. The CPV, which looks like a 33-foot-high sunflower, can generate 12 kilowatts of electrical power and 20 kilowatts of heat on a sunny day — enough to power several average homes, according to Bruno Michel, the project's lead scientists at IBM Research in Switzerland.

4 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. Re: OK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And power poles are ok?

  2. Pretty innovative...easy to mass produce. by Scottingham · · Score: 4, Insightful

    TFA is pretty poorly written, but the pictures are pretty awesome. IMHO the biggest innovation here is the use of those circular mirrors veruses some custom curved mirror that pretty much all existing parabolic-type solar arrays had used. These can be mass produced super cheaply so replacement is more about fixing individual components versus chucking the whole array. They are also likely able to fine tune each mirror to guide the sun towards the center the best. I wonder if they could actively change via computer control. The actual PV section is also pretty smart, as it is a relatively smaller footprint than unamplified PV arrays. Hopefully that'd translate to few materials and lower costs. These always bring up more questions though...like: What about stray reflections? Could they blind people or melt cars if placed in a parking lot (like the example given in TFA) What is the lifespan of those solar arrays if they're getting blasted with such high amounts of light. How fast would they fail if the coolant system ran out? Would it fail catastrophically?

  3. *SIGH* Units FAIL by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    God, just be done with it and convert it to horsepower per barn. That was good enough back in the day. Damned kids.

    --

    Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!

    Vote for Bernie in 2016!

  4. Re:OK by tsa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The world is bigger than the US you know.

    --

    -- Cheers!