New solar Technology...10 fold increase in power

All I can say is wow! And comming from MIT this is pretty reliable. Maybe this is what we have been waiting for in solar technology to get it actually out on the market as a viable source of energy.

Researchers at MIT recently revealed a cutting-edge solar technology that promises a “tenfold increase in the amount of power converted by solar cells.” The development utilizes dye-glazed glass panels to capture and concentrate sunlight and then transfer it to an edge-aligned framework of photovoltaic cells. The resulting system uses cheap and readily available materials, is easy to manufacture, and modular systems can even be layered over existing photovoltaic systems to effectively double their energy efficiency for a minimal additional cost.

Read more on this Solar Energy Breakthrough below.

www.inhabitat.com...

web.mit.edu...

Cost effective devices expected on market soon!

Imagine windows that not only provide a clear view and illuminate rooms, but also use sunlight to efficiently help power the building they are part of. MIT engineers report a new approach to harnessing the sun's energy that could allow just that.

The work, to be reported in the July 11 issue of Science, involves the creation of a novel "solar concentrator." "Light is collected over a large area [like a window] and gathered, or concentrated, at the edges," explains Marc A. Baldo, leader of the work and the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering.

As a result, rather than covering a roof with expensive solar cells (the semiconductor devices that transform sunlight into electricity), the cells only need to be around the edges of a flat glass panel. In addition, the focused light increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell "by a factor of over 40," Baldo says.

Good...

We need these on every single roof in the nation...

Who cares if the centralized energy cabal does not like it... IMO.. They can either assist it with the exorbitant profits they have raped from us for years.. or they can hang from the street lights by their necks if they so much as make a single peep to stop us from being energy independent.

reply to post by SavageHenry


Actually they are windows, that can replace your exsisting windows for a very affordable price!




www.inhabitat.com...

The Queensland University of Technology recently announced that it has been working with Dyesol to develop an innovative solar cell technology that re-envisions windows as clear, clean energy providers. Professor John Bell has said that these dye-infused solar cells would significantly reduce building energy costs, and could even generate surplus energy to be stored or sold. The development has been touted as the most promising advance in solar cell technology since the invention of the silicon cell.

Modern architecture has a love-hate relationship with windows: they contribute light and levity to interior spaces, yet they are the most frequently cited culprits for thermal energy loss. Traditional approaches to the problem have tended towards increasing insular ability, however this new development would imbue windows with power producing capabilities, actually providing energy instead of leaking it.

very poorly written story... doesnt tell you when or if they will be available to the public.. just says that commercial use will begin in few years?? I dont get it???

It's an extremely new technology. You can't expect an immediate ETA on it being implemented. Patients is a virtue. The article told you what it knew.

[edit on 14-7-2008 by Ciphor]

Sounds like very positive steps, we really need these technologies to get the costs down to the level where it can compete with oil quickly, as I feel the fact is, even if global warming is true, even if peak oil is true, the only way the world will really change is if it's economically sound to do so.

reply to post by Ciphor



good to know...tho I'm suspecting it'll have some sticker shock too...

I'm surprised more people don't find this instresting. I mean I know crop circles, Obama, and Alien abductions are more in touch with what people come to read on this site, but this has huge implications. This is a big breakthrough in solar technology. Could change the face of the energy market.

Solar energy being inefficient and expensive was it's biggest hurdle. Now that we have a working cheap and effecient model...

Oh well, guess only a few are interested in the real things that will help to convert the power and control from a few to a many. Self sufficient renewable energy could be a start if we can get it going. Problem is people are always more fascinated with the problem and not the solution.

A completly self-sufficient renewable energy community is possible cleantechnica.com... . The powers of the world lose there power when they lose there money that feeds and drives there power.

Nanosolar is far ahead of the game. The production methods of their revolutionary photovolt. panel are in the final prototype stage, and frankly it looks ready for mass production already. Expect to see more and more "Thin Film" Solar panels in the near future(like next summer). We are in a situation now where the price will start to drop dramatically with these new technologies and progress in developing new panels will become easier because there will be an arms race of sort like in the PC market. I can't wait. My family is getting all the prerequisites ready. Gonna be a pricey Solar Water Heater but that will pay for itself in 5 years combined with rising prices and an on demand water heater. I'm actually getting excited that my family is going to be able to ride out this economic storm now. Hopefully we set a good example and others start imitating us.



[edit on 18-7-2008 by sardion2000]

This Australian company is nearly 10 years ahead with this so-called new technology. Dyesol perfected this technology that mimics photosynthesis quite a while ago and thanks to some large grants from the Australian Defence Force their latest "Stealthcell Solar Panel" is ready for production.

In fact, Dyesol freely admit that it was the Swiss Michael Graetzel that had the break through back in 1988 and they have now perfected it.

Please qualify the statement "is nearly 10 years ahead." Is it way more efficient? Do their production prototype machines produce 1.1 GW worth of solar panels per year instead of 1 GW? Is it cheaper? More efficient? How does it mimic photosynthesis? Does it scrub CO2 out of the atmosphere directly or is it merely an allusion to the fact that you get energy from the sun(which all panels do anyways)? I see many buzzwords in your post with very little substance and I can't be bothered to go research this, coffee breaks are too short and my patients for research at the end of the day is tapped

We got 4 months of solid grey skies and rain last winter. But alot of wind. If we combined advanced solar technology with wind turbines, we wouldn't need fossil fuels for anything. The enormous list of things, including dvds and makeup, that is oil based is incredible. Years ago in Omni or Science digest, we used to get both regularly, I remember the work of a Bio-Scientist that demonstrated how if cities had huge enhanced green areas, most of the pollution was filtered, water plants with plant technology made 100% pure drinking water, and plants make plastic as well. They were able to overcome crisis in water in a third world village by making a plastic basin that held their lake and water system together. Even without energy from the void there are incredible solutions already available.

reply to sardion2000:

Leaves of plants are tiny factories in which sunlight converts carbon dioxide gas and water into carbohydrates and oxygen. They are not very efficient however but are very effective over a wide range of sunlight conditions. In spite of the low efficiency and the fact that the leaves must be replaced, the process has worked for hundreds of millions of years, and forms the primary energy source for all life on earth.

Since the 1970's, attempts have been made to create a better solar cell based on this principle. There were early attempts to cover crystals of semiconductor titanium dioxide with a layer of chlorophyll. However, the electrons were reluctant to move through the layer of pigment, so the efficiency of the first solar cells sensitised in this way was about 0.01%.

Then in 1988 at EPFL in Switzerland, Michael Graetzel discovered that nanotechnology could overcome the problem. Instead of using a single large titanium dioxide (titania) semiconductor, he worked with a sponge of small particles, each about twenty nanometres in diameter, coated with an extremely thin layer of pigment. This method increased the effective surface area available for absorbing the light by 'many times'- now the sunlight was efficiently converted into an electric current.

Dyesol's team has developed this invention to a range of commercial product solutions. Now, less than 15 years after the DSC effect was successfully demonstrated in Switzerland, manufacturing, prototyping and research equipment for 3rd Gen DSC is available from the Australian company Dyesol.

HOW IT WORKS




Photosynthesis in plants:

Plant leaves are tiny factories in which sunlight absorbed by chlorophyll converts carbon dioxide gas and water into carbohydrates (glucose) and oxygen, thus providing for the energy requirements of the plant.




Artificial Photosynthesis

Artificial photosynthesis is based on the concept of a dye analogous to chlorophyll absorbing light and thus generating electrons which enter the conduction band of a high surface area semiconductor film and further move through an external circuit, thus converting light into "green" power.

This is a two-step photovoltaic process, unlike the one step process of conventional PV.

Dyesol's technology is different to any classical PV

* It is a photoelectrochemical cell: charge separation occurs on interface between a wide bandgap semiconductor (e.g. titanium dioxide) and an electrolyte.
* It is a nanoparticulate porous film: it is not a dense film as is amorphous silicon, but a nanoparticulate cell: a "light sponge"
* It is a Dye-sensitised cell: a dye monolayer chemically absorbed on the semiconductor is the primary absorber of sunlight; free charge carriers are generated by electron injections from a dye molecule, excited by visible radiation.

The basic DSC structure.

In basic realization a Dye Solar Cell comprises a layer of nano-particulate titania (Titanium Dioxide) formed on a transparent electrically conducting substrate and photosensitized by a monolayer of dye. An electrolyte, based on an Iodide - Tri-iodide redox system is placed between the layer of photosensitized titania and a second electrically conducting catalytic substrate.




Dye Solar Cells are 25-45% more efficiant than standard PV.

That's just Thin Film Solar panels. Dozens of companies are working on those and I highly doubt Dyesol is "10 years ahead of the game." If they were that far ahead they would've cornered the market already and Google would've invested in them and not Nanosolar. Nanosolars Thin Film panels are coming out next spring/summer! When are Dyesols panels coming out?(Military contracts don't count). Btw the machine I linked about was the very first GW Solar panel production tool made by Nanosolar.

www.nanosolar.com...

Most production tools in the solar industry tend to have a 10-30 megawatt (MW) annual production capacity. How is it possible to have a single tool with gigawatt throughput?

This feat is fundamentally enabled through the proprietary nanoparticle ink we have spent so many years developing. It allows us to deliver efficient solar cells (presently up to more than 14%) that are simply printed.

Printing is a simple, fast, and robust coating process that eliminates the need for expensive high-vacuum chambers and the kinds of high-vacuum based deposition techniques sometimes used in industries where there are a lot more $/sqm available for competitive manufacturing cost.

Our 1GW CIGS coater cost $1.65 million. At the 100 feet-per-minute speed shown in the video, that’s an astonishing two orders of magnitude more capital efficient than a high-vacuum process: a twenty times slower high-vacuum tool would have cost about ten times as much.

Better hope Dyesol licenses the production technology or your shares may not appreciate in value as much as you would hope.