Why Don't Solar Panels Have Magnifying Glasses On Them?

this episode is sponsored by ergir the cost of  solar panels has dropped dramatically in recent   years however we've reached a point where lowering  these costs further isn't enough to make these   systems cheaper and increasing efficiency has to  become more important in determining the system's   total cost but there is a problem increasing  efficiency is very hard and expensive luckily   there's also a solution we just concentrate  all that light shining down onto a smaller   more efficient solar cell so the smaller size and  increased efficiency offset the cell's higher cost   so why don't we just do that I'm Ricky and this is  Two Bit da Vinci. solar energy could single-handedly power the world without breaking a sweat we get  about 173 000 terawatts of constant power from   the sun which is more than 10 000 times the power  we would need to cover the worldwide consumption   of roughly 15 terawatts but to harness all that  energy we need to build better and cheaper solar   panels cost is one of the most common factors  that limit the real world application of many   promising Technologies including renewable like  wind and solar we've known how to turn light   into electricity for almost 70 years now yet  at first this Tech was prohibitively expensive   it's only in the past two decades that prices have  dropped enough to make the technology commercially   competitive and now we have the massive worldwide  adoption which is bringing prices down even   further while already cheaper than colon oil the  U.S Energy Information Administration estimates   solar will become even cheaper than combined  cycle natural gas electricity Generation by   2027. what drove the initial decreases in  cost was the Improvement of large-scale   manufacturing which makes solar cells more  accessible that price continued to decrease over   the years and today it only makes up a fraction of  the total cost of a PV system adding only around   37 to 94 cents per watt of electricity produced so  to further decrease costs it's not enough to just   make these cells cheaper we need to make them  more efficient more efficiency will mean fewer   panels for the same output therefore saving on the  panels themselves but also reducing all the other   Associated costs like installation maintenance and  system balancing but there's a major obstacle in   PV cells increasing efficiency is really expensive  jumping from efficiency around 18 to 20 percent   increases the cost per watt from 50 cents to 88  cents per watt that's a huge increase in cost for   just a couple of percent points of efficiency  other panels reach even higher efficiencies   like the sun power maxion 6 which produces 440  Watts at 22.8 percent efficiency but those cost   nearly 40 percent more than standard panels  so that efficiency comes at a huge price for   for most use cases it comes down to the best bang  for the buck a perfect secular sponsor this week   ergier makes fantastic products that can take  your home office to the next level this is your   48 inch standing desk and since I started using  up my Apple watch stand-up notifications have   never been happier the ergier stand-up desk has  a powerful motor able to lift up to 176 pounds   so no matter how many monitors computers or books  you might have it's more than enough for the job   Dr motor also smoothly adjusted dust from Heights  between 28 and 46 inches meaning there's a setting   for just about everyone you can also program  presets to quickly change the height for me one   is standing and two is sitting yes I do sometimes  sit at my stand-up desk plus with built-in hooks   for things like headphones and a drawer you can  keep your setup clean and clutter free we also   have three er gear monitor mounts that free up so  much space in our common work area the gas Springs   are adjustable for a wide range of monitor so you  can rotate lift and extend for unrivaled control   no matter how you use it so check out urger's  line of stand-up desks and monitor Mouse so   you can level up your setup and use links in the  video description huge thanks to Air Gear and you   for supporting the show but if you want to go all  the way in terms of efficiency you have to choose   multi-junction solar cells these cells work by  sandwiching different layers of semiconductors   from groups three to five on the periodic table to  create multiple PN Junctions each one optimized to   absorb a specific wavelength band allowing us  to use more of the available energy these cells   are already commercially available but can cost  400 times more than your typical utility scale   solar panels they're so expensive in fact that  they're basically reserved for space applications   only we've already did a whole video on these  record-breaking PV cells a few weeks ago where I   explained in detail how multi-junction cells work  and how they're made you can check out that video   if you haven't already links in the description  but I'll bet by now you're wondering how could   paying 400 times more for an output that's only  about twice what you'd get with a normal panel   possibly make any sense that's where concentrated  PVS come in in essence a concentrated photovoltaic   or cpv is a device that collects light from a  large surface area and concentrates it onto a   small PV cell it works the same way how we used  a magnifying glass to burn through wood and paper   when we were kids concentrating light allows  us to generate more power with a smaller PV   cell but it turns out that it also improves the  cell's performance so it's a win-win that will   finally bring the best PV cells in the world to  the mass Market in a cost-effective way for you   and me to enjoy now cpvs come in several different  designs depending on whether we use MERS or lenses   for example mirror collectors can have different  shapes like parabolic through collectors parabolic   dishes and mirror arrays in the case of lenses the  most common are fresnel lenses but there's a new   special 3D printed design created by researchers  from Stanford that'll get back to in just a minute   and you'll also find other exotic Optics that  combine lenses and mirrors we can classify cpvs   according to the level of light concentration  this is usually expressed as a multiple of suns   which is the average iridescence per square meter  at solar noon near the equator and is equivalent   to about 1 000 watts per meter squared so then  two suns will be equal to 2 000 watts per meter   squared 10 cents would be 10 000 watts per meter  squared and so on depending on how many suns The   Collector Shines on the PV cell we can have three  types of cpvs low concentration cpvs that go from   1 to 10 Suns medium concentration cpvs that go  from 10 to 100 and high concentration cpvs that   magnify light to 100 Suns and more a common  question is why is concentrated light onto a   smaller area any good if in the end we're still  using the same amount of light from the sun well   it turns out there's actually quite a few benefits  to doing so the biggest benefit of concentrating   sunlight as opposed to shining PV cells directly  is that you can use a much smaller cell to capture   the same amount of light and don't forget for  now lenses and other concentration materials   are probably a lot cheaper than the PV cells  themselves so take light from Big area Shrine   down to a smaller cell win-win this alone helps  bring solar panel cost down significantly since   surfaces like mirrors and lenses are much cheaper  than photovoltaic surfaces especially compared to   multi-junction cells for reference validary  green power sells a fully mounted 7.2 square   meter panel with 30 efficiency and a two axis  Sun tracking system for only 90 cents per watt   which is 4 cents cheaper than a standard utility  scale PV module mounted on a one axis tracker I   mentioned earlier second although silicon is the  second most abundant element on Earth the group   three to five semiconductors used to manufacture  high efficiency multi-junction solar cells are   in much shorter Supply concentrating light and  minimizing the size of the PV cells helps us use   less material making these panels Greener cheaper  and easier to find and produce at high scale   finally I already hinted at how concentrating  sunlight improves cell performance but this   is more than just about delivering more power  the cell's efficiency also increases with more   concentration notice how the conversion efficiency  of this record holding TV cell made by frondhofer   ISC increases from just under 40 percent at one  cent to 47.6 percent when radiated with 665 Suns   this is the single biggest perk of concentrated  PV cells I mean increasing efficiency by about   eight percent just by shining a brighter light  starting to make sense isn't it at this level of   concentration a typical panel which is roughly  two square meters in size will concentrate two   thousand watts of solar energy onto a square  roughly 2.16 inches on the side around 55   millimeters also a cell would produce 952 watts  of electricity while a typical solar panel of   the same size would produce only 400 watts of  electricity so that's one 665th of the size and   2.38 times the output from the concentrated solar  cell that's an improvement of 1582 times compared   to the average 20 efficient cell this is simply  amazing and makes concentrated photovoltaics an   absolute no-brainer I can already imagine you  wondering so then why are we concentrating light   on all solar panels well as you can probably  imagine concentrated photovoltaics have plenty   of engineering challenges to overcome first  because of the carefully aligned Optics usually   involved a very important part of getting a  cpv to work properly is to make sure that it   receives direct sunlight but as you know the Sun  never stays put it describes an arc from east to   west every day and that Arc also shifts north to  south and Back Again throughout the year according   to the season and the hemisphere you're in this  generally means that concentrated photovoltaics   need to track the sun constantly every day of  the year requiring heavy and expensive two-axis   tracking systems this increases installation and  maintenance costs and makes it next to impossible   to install on your roof for example however  a group of researchers from Stanford came up   with a clever solution they designed a system that  concentrates light with a special 3D printed lens   they call axially graded index lens or agile got  to give them for the marketing which is something   like an inverted pyramid with its tip lopped off  this special lens takes light coming from almost   any direction through the top surface and guides  it down the pyramid toward the PV cell this not   only eliminates the need to track the Sun but  also captures and concentrates diffuse like sky   scattered by clouds in the atmosphere something  no other technology manages no tracking and no   moving Parts also means you can install them on  your roof however there is always a trade-off   their current agile design can only concentrate  light to three Suns so it's a low concentration   system and it loses 10 percent of the incoming  light which eats into the overall efficiency   considerably that said this is just a prototype  and they may come up with a larger and better   agile lens in the future that can overcome some  of these hurdles a team from Penn State University   took a slightly different approach to tackle the  issue of solar tracking on concentrator PVS they   decided to fix the Optics and instead move the  PV array to align the cells with a moving focal   point of the reflected light second as any kid  knows concentrating sunlight into a small surface   area generates a lot of heat and this brings all  sorts of problems to PV cells first of all the   PV cell's efficiency decreases with temperature  based on the following equation you can see that   in the following graph in some k cases of PV cell  that starts off with an efficiency as high as 25   percent at low temperatures ends up at only around  seven percent at 200 degrees Celsius additionally   some PV cells can also suffer permanent damage  if heated above a certain temperature this means   that if the concentrator is too high the panels  need to be cooled low concentration cpvs don't   usually require any cooling at all and medium  concentrator cells are usually fine with passive   cooling using cooling fins and heat sinks but for  high concentration solar cpvs active cooling is a   must this can be a curse or a blessing because  by extracting generated heat and using it for   something else we get a hybrid system with an  overall efficiency that can easily surpass 65   percent or more so win-win all round another  issue to consider is that solar tracking and   active cooling systems add complexity to the  system making it more likely to fail and require   more maintenance all this adds cost that makes  operating these systems more expensive than your   typical rooftop panel I mean those are literally  set it and forget it there's really nothing else   you have to do maybe clean them like once or twice  a year finally there are other issues that may   come up with non-uniform temperatures which can  lower the overall efficiency of cells connected   in series and the fact that access heat can lead  to a shorter lifespan of the system will result   in a higher lcoe or levelized cost of energy I  honestly think that if the guys at Stanford and   there are a bunch of smart guys I'm sure they  can can turn their 3D printed agile lenses into   high concentration photovoltaics and reduce their  losses this could be huge for the future of solar   imagine getting twice the power for the same  size panel you're using now while using less   semiconductor material harnessing even diffuse  light without having to track the sun it almost   sounds too good to be true so I can't wait to see  if it makes it to the market so really this comes   down to a simple trade-off today's PV cells are  non-concentrated which means they just one to one   every square of light coming in it captures but  they're not very efficient only around 20 percent   that means one in five of the photons of light  coming then is actually producing electricity   how do we get that up well using more exotic  materials but those cost way more if you think   about the solar that they use on the space station  or satellites in space they're crazy expensive   they use really exotic materials but they have to  because they have to be really efficient but here   on Earth in order to sell a 10 kilowatt system  of 29 panels to a residential home buyer you'd   have to get the cost under control and this might  be the way to do it and that cool 3D printed lens   idea is really interesting because you don't need  to have moving Parts the minute you have moving   trackers that really limits where you can put  them you can't put them on a roof because the   roof is going to limit the the movement so you'd  have to have like a ground Mount system and that   could make sense for parking lots and other  structures but for homes that lens concept   is really fascinating and this is an entire topic  that I think we should continue to cover as future   breakthroughs happen and we will so that is a  look at concentrated cpvs take a look at this   video next I think you're going to like and until  next time I'm Ricky and this is stupid DaVinci

Channel: Two Bit da Vinci

Views: 549,083

Keywords: two bit da vinci, solar panels, solar energy, solar power, solar panels how they work, solar panel, cpv, concentrated solar power, concentrated solar panels, concentrated solar, concentrated photo-voltaics, concentrated photo voltaics, concentrated photovoltaic, concentrated photovoltaic panels, Insane Solar Invention, concentrated solar cells, Concentrated Solar Breakthrough is 2x More Efficient and 1/2 The Cost!, Why Don't Solar Panels Have Magnifying Glasses On Them?

Id: 6YEhheCuzwU

Length: 13min 51sec (831 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 10 2022