Considering panels can withstand the high levels of heat and energy. Does this have any affect on the time required to charge?
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If you have a solar panel that is 1 square meter and a lens that is 2 square meters, you could focus the light onto the panel and get twice the power.
More or less.
Solar panel efficiency is reduced by heat, so you’ll likely get something like 1.8 of the energy.
As u/jnskjnn said, if you use the magnifier to collect light from an area larger than the solar panel, you can increase its output … IF the unmagnified panel is operating below its capacity.
Solar panels–which include not only the photovoltaic material but the electronics to make the electricity they produce consumable–are designed to optimize electrical output for normal conditions at the Earth’s surface, where solar irradiance maxes out at approximately 1000 to 1100 W/m². If an unmagnified panel is already operating at 100% of its energy production capacity, dumping additional solar energy onto it isn’t going to produce more electricity.
If the lens is larger than the panel, yes. But you’d need to rotate the lens and panel assembly to track the Sun otherwise the image of the sun would move off the panel as the earth rotates. It’s not worth the trouble.
If the lens is larger than the panel, yes. But you’d need to rotate the lens and panel assembly to track the Sun otherwise the image of the sun would move off the panel as the earth rotates. It’s not worth the trouble.
Intuitively I would guess theres not a benefit and probably a net negative.
– The PV would lose efficiency because of extra heat and would potentially have a shorter life.
– The surface area exposed to the sun of the magnifying lens would need to be at least the same size as the PV would be.
I expect with all the money going into research in this area, its likely someone has written a paper on it at _some_ point – and no one has jumped on that bandwagon.
Also the price of PVs has come down SO much over the last few years, that they’re a relatively small part of the cost of a solar installation. I’ve seen numbers suggesting the PVs are only 20% of the whole system installation cost.
Intuitively I would guess theres not a benefit and probably a net negative.
– The PV would lose efficiency because of extra heat and would potentially have a shorter life.
– The surface area exposed to the sun of the magnifying lens would need to be at least the same size as the PV would be.
I expect with all the money going into research in this area, its likely someone has written a paper on it at _some_ point – and no one has jumped on that bandwagon.
Also the price of PVs has come down SO much over the last few years, that they’re a relatively small part of the cost of a solar installation. I’ve seen numbers suggesting the PVs are only 20% of the whole system installation cost.
Yes. A magnifying glass larger than the solar panel would catch light from off the edge and redirect it onto the solar panel.
However, if your magnifying glass is smaller instead of redirecting from beyond the edge you’d be redirecting light away from the solar panel onto the solar panel. You’re just making one section hotter and shadowing another section.
Yes. A magnifying glass larger than the solar panel would catch light from off the edge and redirect it onto the solar panel.
However, if your magnifying glass is smaller instead of redirecting from beyond the edge you’d be redirecting light away from the solar panel onto the solar panel. You’re just making one section hotter and shadowing another section.
Its called [Concentrator photovoltaics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrator_photovoltaics)(concentrated solar power is a term reserved for solar thermal power plants)
It solves specific problems but isn’t great. If you capture light from 10 m^2 with your magnifying glass and concentrate it down into 1 m^2 then you can use a single expensive 1 m^2 solar panel(or multiple tiny ones) with higher efficiency(~40%) to get more energy out of the limited light you captured
But you still had to capture 10 m^2 of light so you probably could have put out 10 m^2 of wayyy cheaper solar panels(20% efficiency) and gotten less power for significantly less cost.
For the most part land is relatively cheap if you’re not picky about where it is so a whole bunch of cheap solar panels are often the choice but if you really need to extract the most power out of a given area and don’t want to spend a fortune on big multijunction panels then you can use lenses to focus the sun down on to lots of little ones
Its called [Concentrator photovoltaics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrator_photovoltaics)(concentrated solar power is a term reserved for solar thermal power plants)
It solves specific problems but isn’t great. If you capture light from 10 m^2 with your magnifying glass and concentrate it down into 1 m^2 then you can use a single expensive 1 m^2 solar panel(or multiple tiny ones) with higher efficiency(~40%) to get more energy out of the limited light you captured
But you still had to capture 10 m^2 of light so you probably could have put out 10 m^2 of wayyy cheaper solar panels(20% efficiency) and gotten less power for significantly less cost.
For the most part land is relatively cheap if you’re not picky about where it is so a whole bunch of cheap solar panels are often the choice but if you really need to extract the most power out of a given area and don’t want to spend a fortune on big multijunction panels then you can use lenses to focus the sun down on to lots of little ones
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