I have a question re: Solar Energy, if im right, I may have a brilliant idea

[infringer]

Definately will not work solar cells are very inefficiant in the means of converting energy I think If I recall the ones nasa uses that cost tons of cas only have like 22-25% efficantcy now you couple that with conversion... Good luck but I will say there is a couple of companies working on 3rd gen solar that will charge your cell phone off of your home lighting which would be benificial cause your light is normally on several hours of the day as it is...

Free charge for that cell phone or MP3 player not bad imho...

People tend to shun the 3rd gen solar cause it uses organic cells but it is unlike the traditional organic solar cells because the active ingrediant used is dry and does not need to be wet putting to rest the biggest issues with homemade organic panels and even pre third gen production models as they used to have to use a liquid form of some chemical errr I forget the exact name but anyone could make these but... not worth it as the contents evaporate and freeze in the winter you end up with broken panels and so on...

But have a look... There is a couple of companies using this new printed solar technology and one company even reports a possible 15% efficiantcy which is good for just about any solar not to mention production on a massive scale they figure could bring prices down to 10cents a watt according to interviews and articles I have read this would be phenomenal.

I think the names are konarka and nanosolar and there are a couple of other companies out of china I believe as well... These are the people who will bring to market this for home use... As usual it will be industry first!  LAME! that doesnt help the econemy at all just helps the rich get richer...

But I guess let the folks with the money pay for the R&D I say then we could scab it up at near bottom line pricing.

-infringer-

[sparks]

   There is a company out there that is developing infrared resonant nanoantennae arrays.  They are up into the 80's compared to 20's on pvs. Water molecules love to resonate at ir freqs.  Glass of water hooked up to a resonant circuit do it?

[Pirate88179]

OK, here is all I know about solar cells, specifically, one of the first solar cells ever built.  I have in my possession from my Dad, who used to work at Bell Labs, one of the original solar cells produced to power the telestar, the world's first telecommunications satellite.  Now, this is quite old and I am sure is no where near the 30-40% efficient rating of modern cells but, from playing with it even as a little kid and now, I have found that I can increase the output from the cell by using a magnifying glass.  This cell is hooked up to a mA meter (the way my Dad made it) and the output doubles with the use of even a crude magnifying lens.  This cell also responds very well to the spectrum put out by a simple single LED.

Ever since I was a kid I never understood why installations of solar panels did not use at least a Fresnel lens type of arrangement.  I also found that I could take mirrors and angle them to collect even more light and between this and the magnifying lens, I can seriously peg the mA meter.  This is just a single, old design cell from the 50's.

Anyway, I liked the suggestion that someone made about finding out what freqs of the light spectrum the cells respond to and then, possibly making other cells that respond to the other freqs.  I believe there is much more power to be had here than is being used today.  Just my thoughts.

Bill

[Steven Dufresne]

Ever since I was a kid I never understood why installations of solar panels did not use at least a Fresnel lens type of arrangement.  I also found that I could take mirrors and angle them to collect even more light and between this and the magnifying lens, I can seriously peg the mA meter.  This is just a single, old design cell from the 50's.

They're starting to do this more now. Instead of having 1 square meter of  expensive solar cells, a complete solar panel in other words, to capture 1 square meter of  sunlight, they're using a single small solar cell, 1 square inch for example, and a cheaper 1 square meter fresnel lense to capture that same 1 square meter of sunlight. Here's one company (SunCube is the product):
http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au/
Spectrolab multijunction cells are up to 40% efficient. I'm not sure which version the SunCube uses, but I think I recall it was in the 30s%.

One issue is heating. The hotter a solar cell gets the less efficient it is, dramatically. The colder the better. When you focus 1 square meter of sunlight on a single cell you get lots of heating. These multijunction cells do turn infrared into electricity so that takes care of some of the heat but I think some cooling is still needed. Another design issue I recall is that the fresnel lense has to focus the light evenly over the solar cell.

But even with 40% efficiency, that means that only 40% of the light what you capture will be turned into electricity and recycled back into powering the lights. The same applies for 99.9%; you have 0.1% less in the next cycle, add that to the next cycle and you're down to 0.2% less, ... It can't be closed loop.
-Steve
http://rimstar.org

[sparks]

    Solar arrays are good until the sun ducks behind a cloud or below the treeline.
Now infrared energy stored in water molecular resonance is there all the time.  50 percent of the suns emissions at the magnetosphere is at infrared wavelengths.  Why this huge scource of energy is neglected is beyond me.  It isn't closed loop until we turn on a lightbulb and start heating the atmosphere again.  How many tetrawatt hours can be converted from just a 1/2 mile of gulfstream thermal energy flow?