2012.10.07 Revolutionary New Solar Power Technology

Cone-Shaped Spinning Solar Cells Claim to Generate 20x More Electricity

Technology

V3Solar takes a known fact: Concentration of light increases the production of electrical energy in PV.

And solves a known problem: Concentration of light increases heat, which decreases the production of electrical energy in PV.

Current solar power theory estimates that a square meter of sunlight has a maximum energy content of 1,000 watts. Based on this, a 20% efficient photovoltaic (PV) panel should produce 200 watts of energy from one square meter of sunlight.

Through its unique patent pending design, V3Solar’s Spin Cell is able to concentrate 20X more sunlight on the same type of PV that is commonly used in standard solar panels without them overheating. This is achieved through a combination of solar concentrating lenses and unique thermal management.

The Spin Cell concentrates the light and avoids the heat. Light is transferred to electricity in nanoseconds. Heat is transferred in milliseconds (1000X longer). The PV on the Spin Cell captures the light, generates the electrical energy, and then spins away before the heat can be transferred to the PV.

The V3solar patent pending design also delivers a higher level of efficiency from PV. Tests to date have shown improvements under laboratory conditions of around 30%, which effectively lifts the efficiency of the PV from 20% to 26%. This means that the PV is able to convert a higher proportion of the light hitting it into energy without having to use more expensive, high efficiency PV.

The Spin Cell’s ability to concentrate light dramatically reduces the amount of PV required for a given output, thus reducing the cost per watt. The improved efficiency of the PV means that less light is required to create the same amount of watts, further reducing costs and improving efficiency of the overall unit.

With appropriate lensing, our 1000 watt Spin Cell is expected to use less than 0.20 square meters of 20% efficiency PV as the sunlight is concentrated 20X and efficiency is increased.

To put it all in one sentence, the Spin Cell concentrates more light on the PV cells, while maintaining a low operating temperature, and the patented spin further improves the efficiency of the PV to increase the total amount of energy produced by each spin cell.

Applications

Despite the dramatic growth of the solar industry, it only accounts for less than 1% of global electricity generation. To achieve significant market share, solar must compete on price with fossil fuels.

Solar tree - Artist view Source : V3SOLAR

Today’s cost per watt metric for measuring solar efficiency can be misleading in its simplicity. In 2011, Marcelo Gomez in Renewable Energy World predicted that Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) would soon become the standard. V3′s Spin Cell technology, which covers dramatically less space when compared to a flat panel deployment for the same energy production, results in a significantly lower TCO than flat panel solar.

Imagine a 1MW solar farm requiring approx 7 acres (2.8 ha/MW) with flat panel solar. With V3, the same energy output requires less than half an acre (0.2 ha/MW), saving on land cost, maintenance, weed control, cleaning, framing and other expenses. This dramatically reduces the TCO, making more projects economically viable.

Links

• V2SOLAR


• Treehugger