Life Alternate » Solar Panels

Printed Solar Cells at MIT

Wispa — Fri, 07 May 2010 06:24:33 +0000

The Solar Energy Industry has become mainstream as an alternative way of producing energy. For what might become available in the on coming years we need to have a little look as what is happening in the research Laboratories.

Rooftop Solar Panel

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been busy working on Printed Solar Cells. Using carbon based dyes the team have made advances that can be made as easily as printing out a letter on a sheet of paper. At the current time the efficiency of the cells is extremely low with being only able to convert between 1.5% to 2% of the light available into electrical energy. That level of generation cannot compete with silicon based photovoltaic solar cells.

These printed cells do have the possible advantage of being cheap to produce and having more versatile applications. If you look around and anything device or cover that is colored is most likely using some form of dye. Now if that dye was an energy producing dye then all those devices could be energized.

This opens up endless possibilities for the use of solar power that only limited by your imagination. Clothing and fabric is an obvious example. Shades and coverings like tents and umbrellas could be powering up and offering energy without adding anything to the weigh. Your cup of coffee could be using the energy to keep you drink warm right down to the last sip.

Moving up a scale the materials that your house is made off could be adding that little bit of extra free energy to your power needs. Or road markings along the highways could be powering intelligent roads. What ever the use may be designers will no doubt try to integrate this idea into every product to add that extra bit of functionality to any product.

These will not replace high power and more sturdy solar panels and for large energy production they will still rule.

Electric vehicles are going to be driving quietly up and down our roads soon and these would be an ideal candidate for solar dye’s. You’ll still need to charge up regularly but the extra energy might just get you a few extra miles each day. It might not seem a lot but it is free.

If the efficiency can be improved and the world was full of energy producing dye covered product then they would generate an extremely large amount of power. Those little trickles if somehow storable or connectable to the grid is all energy that is free to produce and doesn’t use fossil fuels.

The only problem left is what color to choose.

Solarmer Plastic Solar Panels

Wispa — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:14:00 +0000

In Los Angeles, Solarmer Energy have just broken their own record in solar efficiency. Solarmer produce plastic solar cells as opposed to the common photovoltaic silicon bases solar cells. Their previous record was a 6.77% conversion of solar in to electricity and now they have increased that to 7.6%. This conversion is much lower than photovoltaic panels but the specific qualities of being made from plastic opens the door for many applications.

This material when made in to panels will be transparent and much much lighter than the more sturdy PV panels. Added quality of being flexible, means that the solar plastic can be integrated in small electronic devices like cell phones and audio players to make them virtually self powering. Future applications will include fabrics, from clothing to tent material.

The cost of these plastic solar panels will be much less than Silicon based panels and the flexibility will see them potentially become part of the building material of constructions. While on the small scale self powering devices is the obvious market, larger scale developments such as glass windows in office tower blocks could be an application. In fact practically any exposed surface area that receives sunlight could utilize flexible plastic solar panels to generate power.

Photovoltaic solar panels will not be replaced, they are still the best way to generate high amounts of electricity in a small area. Plastic solar should have a bright future in the coming years as it develops.

Dell’s Solar Parking Lot

Wispa — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:50:41 +0000

Solar Trees are starting to sprout around the world in a new era of forestation. The latest plantation of these Photovoltaic saplings have been spotted in Texas. Dell, or more exactly, The parking lot of Dell`s headquarters in Texas has seen the growth of a small forest of Solar Panels disguised as shading carports.

Over 500 solar panels have been cultured here to provide shelter for 56 cars for the Dell employees. As these are of the genus “solaritius” they have qualities that are not found in other carports. As an added benefit to mankind these are capable of being harvested of 130,000 kilowatt hours of solar energy each year. This can be used to supply solar powered or hybrid cars in the parking lot.

The carports do not cover the entire lot so there might be some car owners who are left without shade in the summer heat. This might also be a slight ploy by the Dell corporation to encourage employees to arrive early for work and occupy the best spots. According to Dell the solar panels in the carport could reduce the toxic carbon emission to the atmosphere by 145,000 pounds of CO2.

Like many companies around the world, Dell are incorporating solar and other forms of renewable energy in their companies to supplement they or replace some of their energy requirements. The vast majority of power used is still generated by traditional unfriendly methods, such as coal or gas. But whatever we think of those companies, some are at least starting to use solar energy.

The photovoltaic solar trees were built by Envision solar with BP Solar and Coulomb Technologies also playing their parts in the development of this project. Envision Solar had previously equipped Google (some internet search company apparently) with their green solar projects.

When we get down to figures and dollar costs the benefit of this projects may not seem much, but utilizing all those spaces of car parks around the country and incorporating a secondary purpose is removing the need for solar panels to be placed in, sometimes controversial , locations.