eli5: Does casting rays through magnifying lens on the solar panels have any positive or negative affect?

Question

Considering panels can withstand the high levels of heat and energy. Does this have any affect on the time required to charge?

In: 10

Answer 1

No. Energy in = energy out. A magnifying lens doesn’t increase the amount of solar energy, it simply focusses or disperses it. It cannot increase the energy in.

If you think about using a magnifying glass to focus the sun’s rays to start a fire you aren’t increasing anything. Rather, you are taking all the light/energy that is hitting the surface of the lens and focussing it all down into a single point of focus, increasing the density of energy at that point but not the magnitude of available energy.

You could, in theory, build a lens that’s bigger than the solar panel to capture more energy and focus it on the panel. But if you’re going to do that, you may as well just build a bigger panel.