cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/24690127
Solar energy experts in Germany are putting sun-catching cells under the magnifying glass with astounding results, according to multiple reports.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems team is perfecting the use of lenses to concentrate sunlight onto solar panels, reducing size and costs while increasing performance, Interesting Engineering and PV Magazine reported.
The “technology has the potential to contribute to the energy transition, facilitating the shift toward more sustainable and renewable energy sources by combining minimal carbon footprint and energy demand with low levelized cost of electricity,” the researchers wrote in a study published by the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics.
The sun-catcher is called a micro-concentrating photovoltaic, or CPV, cell. The lens makes it different from standard solar panels that convert sunlight to energy with average efficiency rates around 20%, per MarketWatch. Fraunhofer’s improved CPV cell has an astounding 36% rate in ideal conditions and is made with lower-cost parts. It cuts semiconductor materials “by a factor of 1,300 and reduces module areas by 30% compared to current state-of-the-art CPV systems,” per IE.
Oh don’t worry, I’m sure the capitalist system will manage to fuck it up somehow.
Banned in North America in 3… 2…
“The lens makes it different from standard solar panels that convert sunlight to energy with average efficiency rates around 20%, per MarketWatch. Fraunhofer’s improved CPV cell has an astounding 36% rate in ideal conditions”
Why would I want to compare one panel’s average efficiency to another panels efficiency in ideal conditions?
Marketing. Fresnel lenses are not going to do well with diffuse light.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding but wouldn’t diffuse light be what it’s going to be best at? While it’d be worse on a sunny day when there is an optimal single direction for the light to come in?
It’s the opposite of a light house fresnel lens - instead of scattering the light source evenly out, it’ll capture diffuse incoming rays from random directions better and concentrate it on the photovoltaic cell? However it would be at the cost of being able to capture direct sunlight efficiently as only some of the lens would ever be in the best position to capture the direct rays?
I have not read the article yet, but I will be doing so after posting this. But from what I understand, concentrated cells via lenses already exist. The problem with them was keeping them cool.
Going to go read the actual article now.
Edit: Well, the article was very sparse on details. From what I understand of the comments, what’s really been done here is making cells that can stand the kind of heat that would be focused onto them from the glass.
I want to say I saw a video about this a year ago or so, but it was more solar thermal, where you focus a bunch of mirrors onto a single point high up on a tower, and it’s cooled by molten salt. But as I said, that’s solar thermal, not solar power electricity.
Yeah the problem has always been that solar panels only really like to operate within a very narrow temperature band. It’s why you can’t just plate the Sahara desert in solar panels. In theory that would generate loads of power but the heat of the desert is way outside of their operating range.
There’s been loads of ideas to heat/cool solar panels, the problem up until now has always been to do that without cutting into the panel’s efficiency so much that it isn’t worth doing.
But there’s been videos on YouTube of people cooling solar panels with plasma cooling and phase change materials for a few years now.
I thought this has already been done. Guess there’s some nuance to it that is above my understanding of it.
Anyhow, advancements in solar are cool in my book.
Concentrating solar cells have been around for decades, but I suppose the efficiency Fraunhofer achieved here is nothing to sneeze at.
Just wanted to drop a comment.
I love solar. It’s the best form of energy that’s attainable by the average person.
Hey it’s those guys that invented MP3s.
That was Fraunhofer IIS not ISE.
Lossy compression of sunlight?
It really whips the sun’s ass.
I’m not sure what to think about the Fraunhofer institute in general. They have made some nice discoveries/inventions in the past, such as audio compression algorithms and such. That is why i hyped them for a bit.
But they really disappointed me with their writings on solar panels in the past few years.
They said that the efficiency of solar panels today is too low to deploy them widely in practice, which is simply not true. They tried pushing Perovskite solar cells for no reason.
I’m not sure what to think about this article’s idea. On one hand, adding lenses to solar parks makes them significantly more complicated and therefore expensive to build. Also, if the parks have complicated physical forms, they’re more susceptible to wind, and that could damage them.
On the other hand, yes, adding lenses means you need fewer actual solar panels for the same amount of energy harvested.
I’ll therefore put it in the category of inconclusive inventions, together with the idea of adding a motor to the solar panels so they can track the sun. That would also make the solar panels more efficient, but also more complicated and more prone to mechanical failure.
well, adding lenses kinda requires motorizing the panels to track the sun, right? otherwise the “hot spot” is going to move around across the day/year
is there a way to shape the lens to mitigate this?
Could have some refraction or hologram thing that bends the light the right way, maybe? Or like a matte glass that equalises the load.
Or why not just use (big) mirrors?
Won’t help with heat ofc!
You make them convex.
You can shape them that no matter how the light falls on it, it will align to the center. Kind of like how satellite dishes work but in reverse.
I’d like to know what they’re going to do about the heating issue. Concentrating solar radiation carries with it an increased heat load. And heat reduces solar PV efficiency. I’m already losing about 30% in summer when the panels heat up.
This was my first question too! I thought heat makes them wear out faster.
It does. Also seems weird nobody thought of a magnifying glass before.
But its also the beauty in science. Now somebody else thought about it, and they might work harder to fix the next problem: Heat.
If that gets better now, solar panels will increase in output even more. There are so many technologies going into one product, and each field have its own experts.
I’m excited.
They probably did, but like they said, the heating is probably the issue.
I can see them adding a cooling element. Maybe even water cooling.
The only thing slowing down the transition from fossil fuels to renewables is the same impediment it has always been: oil money protecting itself.
Solar panels are already quite cheap. What we need is much cheaper grid forming inverters so we can stop destabilizing the grid with solar.
Grid forming will just mean the keep running the house when the power goes off, it’s not safe for them to be pushing power when it’s disappeared, that has been set by regulation in many countries.
What you describe is more like black start, providing power to the grind when it is down. This has to be controlled well, and only a few plants need to be capable of it.
Grid following means something like whatever the grid does, the inverter injects power supporting it. A grid forming generator or inverter also follows the grid somewhat, but tries to get it to an optimal condition. This entails things like voltage control by reactive power, frequency control by operating reserve, fault ride trough capability and so on. Many of those are naturally provided by large conventional power plants using synchronous generators like gas, nuclear or hydro. For inverter based systems, they have to be considered explicitly. For battery storage most are relatively easy to implement, some also in solar inverters. The tech exists, but yes, in some countries the regulations have not kept up with rapid expanse of inverter based power generation in the last years.
If the cost of panels drops significantly, there would be more capital available to spend on inverters, even if they stay at the current prices, still decreasing the cost of deployment. But yes. 😄
“Has the potential to contribute…” Wow. Amazing.
I like the understatement. Shame they spoiled it with the “game changing” claim at the beginning.
It’s because the understatement came from the paper and the bullshit came from the science reporter.
If I had a penny for every time I heard about new advancements about to revolutionise solar panel technology, I’d have glazed the bloody Sahara with them by now.
Would the cost chart of PV cells look something like this?
Even crazier that it’s a logarithmic graph.
Wait for something fucking idiotic like:
“U.S. government to implement 5,000% tax on new solar technology…”
Solar is too woke and Marxist for the current US government.
“also, revenue from new tax will be used to build new coal mines staffed by concentration camp inmates 1”
