Is Spherical Solar Really The Future of Energy?

this map shows the amount of energy from solar radiation that hits the ground in many different areas of the world as you can see the energy from the Sun is not evenly distributed but what if there was a way to capture more of this energy without increasing costs many weird and wonderful Contraptions try to get the most out of the sun's power but what if we could use lenses to concentrate it instead the company beta I and many others are actually already doing this but why hasn't the use of lenses caught on I'm Ryan and welcome to xeroth and if like me you think it's time to fix the planet make sure to stick around until the end to hear about the awesome videos from my friends over at Planet Wild the idea of concentrating solar power isn't anything new and has been done since 1968. these original systems used mirrors to concentrate the sun to heat a fluid in the middle while these are still widely used they don't directly generate electricity therefore to do this you would need to combine it with a large steam generator this is why combining lenses and standard photovoltaic cells is so attractive before I went too far into this topic I wanted to make sure that this actually worked for myself so I got out my solar panel and a multimeter and started my tests you might notice I'm not using a magnifying glass though instead I have a fresnel lens this is because it is lighter thinner and more cost effective than a normal curved lens the fresnel lens was invented by a French physicist named Augusta jean-franel in the early 19th century it was first used in lighthouses where it allowed light to be visible over much greater distances to improve Maritime navigation since then the fresnel lens has found uses in many other applications such as in cameras VR headsets and solar energy concentrators the fresnel lens works a lot like a normal lens but instead of being a big thick curved piece of glass it is flattened out and made up of a number of concentric Rings each of these Rings bends the light just the right amount so that it can be concentrated into a single point now my experiments will set up with some resistors and a breadboard let's see what this lens can do for us without the lens my multimeter reads 5.05 volts and 15 milliamps but with the lens this jumps to 5.8 volts and 24 milliamps meaning it goes from 78 milliwatts to 139 milliwatts so we can get nearly twice as much energy from the panel over the period of an hour however before we get too carried away there are a few issues here that start to make this process a bit more complex for one because we're increasing the solar intensity it also means the solar panels get really hot this reminds me of how I could melt Toy Soldiers as a kid with a magnifying glass because of this concentrated heat many solutions to keeping the panels cool have been invented one way to stop the panels getting too hot is putting a heatsink on the bottom like you might find in your computer these are good because they cool down on their own without using any energy however they don't work as well in hot conditions or where there is limited airflow it is also possible to remove the heat with a cooling liquid and even use that heat somewhere you might need it like in your home however this does add more cost and complexity if we look back at the beta I solar system from before with our Newfound knowledge some of its drawbacks start to become quite apparent unlike the fresnel lens the glass sphere is large and heavy the small solar panel also doesn't seem to have any considerable cooling when this solar energy system was first designed it was launched as an Indiegogo campaign it raised over two hundred thousand dollars from more than 1 000 backers but considering the last update was nearly three years ago it seems this may be more suited as an art installation a similarly striking desk version was also developed but both of these share the final challenge plaguing the world of concentrated photovoltaics we can see this in the black structure around the sphere this is a solar tracker unfortunately as the sun moves in the sky the position of the concentrated light moves to to make sure the panel always has Sun something has to shift I actually love the look of the beta I solar tracking system but more cost effective ones are already widely available between the lenses cooling systems and solar trackers it's clear to see why these concentrated solar systems haven't made it mainstream not yet at least but we'll go back to that amongst all of my research one thing I kept thinking was how can this capture more overall energy if there is still the same amount of sun shining on the ground for example imagine a field is full of solar panels if we instead cover it in lenses and smaller solar panels underneath them there will still be the same amount of solar energy landing on the field but that's when I learned about the Real Genius of this technology unlike the lens from beta eye the company franhofer ISC are using thin fresnel lenses more cost-effective solar trackers and have passive cooling what they also have is the all-important multi-junction solar cell that is super efficient these can absorb more of the sun's energy because they have multiple layers but they are also more expensive which is why reducing their size is so important what's really incredible though is that their efficiency actually increases as the sun becomes more concentrated this means they can reach efficiencies of 40 to 45 percent compared to 15 to 20 percent of normal single Junction cells if we think back to that field of solar panels having them operate at 45 efficiency instead of 15 would give us three times the amount of generated energy because these concentrator panels would still need solar tracking they are slightly more expensive and more prone to failure this solar tracking issue was therefore the motivation for the actually graded index lens due to its shape this lens can redirect the sunlight into the middle no matter where the sun is coming from however the benefit of not needing a tracking system would need to outweigh the added size and cost of these lenses all of these concentrated solar panel systems do also require direct sunlight meaning they don't make much sense for places like the UK where there is a lot of cloud despite these limitations and challenges there is still cause for optimism when it comes to concentrated photovoltaics although the beta eye may never see the light of day these other Concepts might in fact One Financial prediction shows concentrated photovoltaics dropping below standard cells in the correct applications over the next 10 years however this was from one of the companies working on these systems so take it with a grain of salt as you're still watching please subscribe to my channel and make sure to check out planetworld's new YouTube channel that is doing some incredible projects you won't want to miss every month Planet wild releases a video where they go on a mission to rewild our planet to help put right some of the damage human activity has done to the environment here are two of my favorite projects from them in one they partnered with the non-profit Coral soul and went on a deep dive ocean cleanup at 40 meters below the sea in the other they transformed a massive dying Forest into a strong climate resilient ecosystem their videos are really entertaining and combine education with real world action all of their work is driven by a community that anyone can join to help our planet bounce back I've already joined it myself and you can too what I really like is how they partner with local organizations they also show you how much they've invested what they've already achieved and their ideal outcomes going forward good I'm sure you'll find their work as interesting as I do so make sure to go and check them out and let them know that I sent you

Channel: Ziroth

Views: 338,647

Keywords: Science, Engineering, STEM, Electric, Zero, Tesla, News, Research, EV, Battery, solar, cheap, low, cost, wind, turbine, hack, lens, fresnel

Id: alpAB1n4U7w

Length: 8min 54sec (534 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 04 2023