Company unveils spheres that could outperform solar panels by 60x

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/photon-energy-systems-solar-spheres-wavja/

by domysee • 2 years ago

3 5 2 years ago

h2odragon• 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra

swechsler2• 2 years ago

Solar panels have already hit above 20% efficiency. 60 times that would mean 1200% efficient. I'm no thermodynamics expert, but I'm pretty sure that's impossible.

fuzzfactor2• 2 years ago

I guess you need to look at it from the point of view of least unrealistic exaggeration ;)

Maybe by some measure this "3D" approach might be more efficient per square foot since the conventional flat panels are basically a 2D capture solution.

Plus it sounds like there are multiple photosensitive layers within the sphere which might be theoretically capable of more thorough energy recovery, perhaps turning reflective panel losses into internally reflected sphere gains.

Or maybe adding to more output per square foot at least.

They're in NYC, if you can't build out, build up ;)

swechsler2• 2 years ago

Measuring efficiency of photovoltaic panels takes into account the maximum amount of energy that can be recovered for a given amount of sunlight (a theoretical max of about 1kw/m^2). So 20% efficiency implies that 20% of the total energy that hits a given area of panel is converted to electrical energy (the rest is presumably reflected off or converted to heat). Whether the area is 2 or 3 dimensional is irrelevant; any upper layer will necessarily result in diminished energy passed to the lower layers.

Company unveils spheres that could outperform solar panels by 60x

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