TimmyHComing Soon! Cheap Solar Power
July 15th 2008 05:06
Glass coated Solar Panels could soon make Solar Power as cheap as electricity from fossil fuels.
Researchers at MIT in the U.S. have created a new Solar Power technology which could drastically reduce the price of individual Solar Panels. The new panels are made of glass, coated with advanced organic dyes and are able to more efficiently concentrate sunlight.
“This could be the cheapest solar technology," says Marc Baldo, a professor of electrical engineering at MIT. “And I think one day, it could be competitive with coal.”
The glass sheets reduce the amount of expensive semi-conducting material that Solar Panels currently need. They provide a cheap way to extract energy at a higher rate from photons at the blue end of the spectrum of light.
The advantage of the flat glass sheets is that they don’t require lenses to focus the energy from the sun and convert it to electricity. The new sheets are lighter and need less support so they can be incorporated into current Solar cells or even be used as windows. Because current Solar Panels require tracking systems to focus light correctly with mirrors, they are excessively expensive. But the new glass sheets don’t require any of these tracking systems and are hence much cheaper.
The organic dyes which coat the glass sheet do much of the absorption of light which is then passed on to the surface of the glass underneath. In this way the panels work much like fibre-optic cables which are able to channel light over incredibly long distances. The amount of light concentration depends on the size of the sheet. The greater the concentration, the less semi-conductor is required in the sheets and the cheaper Solar Power becomes.
Previously, the problem with using organic dyes as Solar concentrators is that they tend to absorb much of the light before it even reaches the glass. The researchers at MIT were able to overcome this problem by using dyes that don’t absorb the light that they emit. So a dye that might absorb ultraviolet green light would emit orange frequencies and the problem is easily overcome.
Based on research results, the project’s managers believe that Solar Power could soon be made as cheap as conventional fossil fuel electricity. “We showed much bigger concentration factors than people had shown before,” Baldo says.
Each wavelength of light has a different amount of energy, with Infrared photons the least and ultraviolet photons the most. By producing semi-conductor materials that are able to absorb more than one frequency, the efficiency of the panel is greatly increased.
The dye-coated glass sheets are a cheap and cost-effective method of using different types of solar conductors within the same module. If the glass panels are stacked, more than one frequency of light can be absorbed and the efficiency of the system can be almost doubled.
Olson believes that the technology will be available within three years.
Researchers at MIT in the U.S. have created a new Solar Power technology which could drastically reduce the price of individual Solar Panels. The new panels are made of glass, coated with advanced organic dyes and are able to more efficiently concentrate sunlight.
“This could be the cheapest solar technology," says Marc Baldo, a professor of electrical engineering at MIT. “And I think one day, it could be competitive with coal.”
The glass sheets reduce the amount of expensive semi-conducting material that Solar Panels currently need. They provide a cheap way to extract energy at a higher rate from photons at the blue end of the spectrum of light.
The advantage of the flat glass sheets is that they don’t require lenses to focus the energy from the sun and convert it to electricity. The new sheets are lighter and need less support so they can be incorporated into current Solar cells or even be used as windows. Because current Solar Panels require tracking systems to focus light correctly with mirrors, they are excessively expensive. But the new glass sheets don’t require any of these tracking systems and are hence much cheaper.
The organic dyes which coat the glass sheet do much of the absorption of light which is then passed on to the surface of the glass underneath. In this way the panels work much like fibre-optic cables which are able to channel light over incredibly long distances. The amount of light concentration depends on the size of the sheet. The greater the concentration, the less semi-conductor is required in the sheets and the cheaper Solar Power becomes.
Previously, the problem with using organic dyes as Solar concentrators is that they tend to absorb much of the light before it even reaches the glass. The researchers at MIT were able to overcome this problem by using dyes that don’t absorb the light that they emit. So a dye that might absorb ultraviolet green light would emit orange frequencies and the problem is easily overcome.
Based on research results, the project’s managers believe that Solar Power could soon be made as cheap as conventional fossil fuel electricity. “We showed much bigger concentration factors than people had shown before,” Baldo says.
Each wavelength of light has a different amount of energy, with Infrared photons the least and ultraviolet photons the most. By producing semi-conductor materials that are able to absorb more than one frequency, the efficiency of the panel is greatly increased.
The dye-coated glass sheets are a cheap and cost-effective method of using different types of solar conductors within the same module. If the glass panels are stacked, more than one frequency of light can be absorbed and the efficiency of the system can be almost doubled.
Olson believes that the technology will be available within three years.
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