RPI and 96.2% efficiency

Moe

Anyone here know anything about this?

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4A26XF20081103

niel

Re: RPI and 96.2% efficiency

i've heard this before, but i don't fully believe it.
"It captures more colors of solar spectrum and it captures light from all angles."
i think they may make improvements to these areas, but a bold statement like capturing light from all angles is pure bull and impossible.

mike95490

Re: RPI and 96.2% efficiency

And the "Laser Sulfur" treatment is supposed to get up to 90%. But they actually haven't made any yet...

BB.

Re: RPI and 96.2% efficiency

From the article, if I understand it correctly, the coatings will only increase light collection by 30% from off-angle sun (reducing the need for a tracker)...

So, a 12% efficient panel will become a 16% efficient panel... Not bad--if the costs are low--but not a 96% efficient conversion by any means.

-Bill

boB

Re: RPI and 96.2% efficiency

Article says:
"If you look at a solar panel, it looks a bit bluish," Lin said. That is "telling you not all of the blue color is being absorbed. It should look totally dark."

So I covered my PV with black electrical tape and it didn't help at ALL !!

boB

mike95490

Re: RPI and 96.2% efficiency

Sulfur Silicon solar cells - called Black Silicon, has been lasered in a sulfur rich gas, gets transmogrified to structural shape that is very efficient at harvesting solar energy, across much of the light & IR bands. 80% conversion ??

Laboratory use only - not life or field tested yet.

articles here:
http://mazur-www.harvard.edu/research/detailspage.php?rowid=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_silicon
http://tinyurl.com/4w3pbq

LBergman

Re: RPI and 96.2% efficiency

I don't think they're claiming 96% efficiency. What they are saying is the cells will absorb 96% of the sunlight hitting them (vs. ~67% for current cells). There's still the normal conversion of turning the absorbed sunlight into electricity.

boB

Re: RPI and 96.2% efficiency

I believe that this blog has to do with this new solar skin cream...

http://energy-for-future.blogspot.com/

So, where can I get some to try ??

Also, just found one of RPI's sites about this:

http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2507


boB

System2

Re: RPI and 96.2% efficiency

My Good Grief Bob! I had a look at that first link you provided and what a pile of horse fertilizer resides there
One guy built his own PV panel and still using the same KWH he always did, is now saving $180 per month on his electricity bill! And it says he lives near me! HAHAHA Problem is, some poor guy trying desperately to make ends meet, will get suckered into this crap and the end result will be word of mouth about how bad solar is.

Moe

Re: RPI and 96.2% efficiency

Thank you all for your explanations. A 40% improvement in output at a 90º sun angle, as well as reduced loss at angles away from that, would be a very large improvement in the state of technology.

System2

Re: RPI and 96.2% efficiency

Hello Moe,
The coating will reduce the amount of energy that would be lost due to reflection (typically a few percent but increases as the incident angle increases). The antireflection coating still doesn't solve the problem of reduced intercepted power at large incident angles. The power intercepted by a collector is proportional to the cosine of the incident angle. For example, at a zero degree incident angle 100% of the power is available minus a small amount of reflected light. At a 60 degree angle, only 50% of the beam power is available minus perhaps 10% due to reflection.
The net result is that a tracking system would still be needed to collect the maximum amount of light throughout the day.

Regards,
Jeff Fedison

System2

Re: RPI and 96.2% efficiency

Also, the abstract from the article is available here:

http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=ol-33-21-2527

Moe

Re: RPI and 96.2% efficiency

Thanks for the good info, Jeff!