Advanced Solar Cell from Israel

westbranch

Found this old 2008 posting about solar concentrating mirrors onto a small PV with higher output. BUt wonder if the Israeli's have done anything with it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O47RiYJiKI

from Wikipedia David Faiimian
Faiman's work attempts to use concentrated sunlight and a solar panel to produce more electricity than believed possible.[6] He and his team designed a reflector that concentrates light so strongly that it can burn organic material, and then directs it at a solar panel that collects and converts it into electricity twice as efficiently as standard panels.[7] Faiman's team feels this discovery is a way to mass-produce solar energy to be cost competitive with fossil fuels.[7] On National Public Radio, Faiman claimed that his team was able to derive 1,500 watts of electric power from a four-inch-by-four-inch module.[8] They have reportedly teamed with Israeli start-up company Zenith Solar to build a prototype. Faiman is an adviser to the company.

He is Israel's representative to the Task 8 Photovoltaic Specialist Committee of the International Energy Agency and co-authored their book, Energy from the Desert: Practical Proposals for Very Large Scale Photovoltaic Systems (James & James, London, 2007).

Zenith Solar
In 2007, David Faiman, director of the Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center, announced that the Center had entered into a project with Zenith to create a home solar energy system that uses a 10 square meter reflector dish.[2] Zenith bought the rights to solar technology from Ben-Gurion University and Germany's Fraunhofer Institute to create solar energy using mirrors and lenses that magnify and focus the sun's rays. In testing, the concentrated solar technology proved to be up to five times more efficient than standard flat photovoltaic silicon panels, which would make it almost as cheap as oil and natural gas. A prototype ready for commercialization achieved a concentration of solar energy that was more than 1,000 times greater than standard flat panels.[1] According to Faiman, who led the Israeli team that developed the technology, 10% of Israel’s energy needs (1,000 megawatts) could be met from 12 square kilometres of land.[3]

Since 2009, Zenith Solar has been assembling solar panel kits at its factory in Kiryat Gat. [4] The company uses CHP (combined heat and power) technology which reaches efficiencies of over 70%, compared to 10-15% for conventional PV panels. In addition to harvesting more energy from a smaller space, less landfill is produced from their waste. The materials are mirrors, plastic and metals, which are 99% recyclable.

Looks like Zenith went under in 2012 but nothing further about the technology. Too bad the system seemed to have a sound footing.

niel

Re: Advanced Solar Cell from Israel

concentrating sunlight onto cells doesn't usually work out very well because the cells don't last very long. using the concentrated sunlight for steam generation and thus generating the electric from that may pan out a bit better.