Posted on 07/10/2008 12:36:10 PM PDT by Kevmo
MIT team increases efficiency of solar panels Boston Globe, United States - 42 minutes ago said Jonathan Mapel, an author of the study and MIT graduate student who has co-founded a startup called Covalent Solar to turn the idea into a product. ... See-Through Solar Hack Could Double Panel Efficiency Wired News - 1 hour ago Towards that end, colleagues of his at MIT have spun out a new company, Covalent Solar, to commercialize the technology. Dyeing for More Solar Power Greentech Media, MA - 1 hour ago A team of MIT researchers is starting a new company, Covalent Solar, to develop technology that can potentially increase solar-panel efficiencies by 50 ... MIT opens new 'window' on solar energy EurekAlert (press release), DC - 1 hour ago Mapel, Currie and Goffri are starting a company, Covalent Solar, to develop and commercialize the new technology. Earlier this year Covalent Solar won two ...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.google.com ...
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=%22covalent+solar%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1226946198&sa=X&oi=news_result&resnum=4&ct=more-results&cd=1
I’m not sure if I posted this properly. It’s a story that’s coming out on multiple sources, most of which seem to have an excerpting policy.
pinging the renewable energy ping list in hopes the article survives
Press Release from MIT
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/miot-mon070708.php
Public release date: 10-Jul-2008
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Contact: Teresa Herbert
therbert@mit.edu
617-258-5403
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT opens new ‘window’ on solar energy
Cost effective devices expected on market soon
CAMBRDGE, Mass. — Imagine windows that not only provide a clear view and illuminate rooms, but also use sunlight to efficiently help power the building they are part of. MIT engineers report a new approach to harnessing the sun’s energy that could allow just that.
The work, to be reported in the July 11 issue of Science, involves the creation of a novel “solar concentrator.” “Light is collected over a large area [like a window] and gathered, or concentrated, at the edges,” explains Marc A. Baldo, leader of the work and the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering.
As a result, rather than covering a roof with expensive solar cells (the semiconductor devices that transform sunlight into electricity), the cells only need to be around the edges of a flat glass panel. In addition, the focused light increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell “by a factor of over 40,” Baldo says.
Because the system is simple to manufacture, the team believes that it could be implemented within three years—even added onto existing solar-panel systems to increase their efficiency by 50 percent for minimal additional cost. That, in turn, would substantially reduce the cost of solar electricity.
In addition to Baldo, the researchers involved are Michael Currie, Jon Mapel, and Timothy Heidel, all graduate students in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Shalom Goffri, a postdoctoral associate in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics.
“Professor Baldo’s project utilizes innovative design to achieve superior solar conversion without optical tracking,” says Dr. Aravinda Kini, program manager in the Office of Basic Energy Sciences in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, a sponsor of the work. “This accomplishment demonstrates the critical importance of innovative basic research in bringing about revolutionary advances in solar energy utilization in a cost-effective manner.”
Solar concentrators in use today “track the sun to generate high optical intensities, often by using large mobile mirrors that are expensive to deploy and maintain,” Baldo and colleagues write in Science. Further, “solar cells at the focal point of the mirrors must be cooled, and the entire assembly wastes space around the perimeter to avoid shadowing neighboring concentrators.”
The MIT solar concentrator involves a mixture of two or more dyes that is essentially painted onto a pane of glass or plastic. The dyes work together to absorb light across a range of wavelengths, which is then re-emitted at a different wavelength and transported across the pane to waiting solar cells at the edges.
In the 1970s, similar solar concentrators were developed by impregnating dyes in plastic. But the idea was abandoned because, among other things, not enough of the collected light could reach the edges of the concentrator. Much of it was lost en route.
The MIT engineers, experts in optical techniques developed for lasers and organic light-emitting diodes, realized that perhaps those same advances could be applied to solar concentrators. The result? A mixture of dyes in specific ratios, applied only to the surface of the glass, that allows some level of control over light absorption and emission. “We made it so the light can travel a much longer distance,” Mapel says. “We were able to substantially reduce light transport losses, resulting in a tenfold increase in the amount of power converted by the solar cells.”
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This work was also supported by the National Science Foundation. Baldo is also affiliated with MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics, Microsystems Technology Laboratories, and Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies.
Mapel, Currie and Goffri are starting a company, Covalent Solar, to develop and commercialize the new technology. Earlier this year Covalent Solar won two prizes in the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. The company placed first in the Energy category ($20,000) and won the Audience Judging Award ($10,000), voted on by all who attended the awards.
Written by Elizabeth Thomson, MIT News Office
Photos available upon request
It might make sense to change the title to:
MIT opens new ‘window’ on solar energy
However, a search for “covalent solar” in the title would not produce a hit.
MIT researchers turn everyday windows into solar panels
The technology could soup up traditional panels by 50%
By Sharon Gaudin
July 10, 2008 (Computerworld) Researchers at MIT have created a new way to harness the sun’s energy — by turning windows of big buildings into solar panels.
The new technology, dubbed “solar concentrators,” harvests light over a wide area such as a window pane and then concentrates or gathers it at the window’s edges, said Marc Baldo, a professor at MIT and head of the effort. He talked about the project in a video available from MIT.
Baldo added that the technology also could be used to soup up more traditional solar panels, increasing their efficiency by 50%. Solar panels are semiconductors (often found on rooftops) that transform sunlight into electricity.
“The sun is an inexhaustible source of clean power. The major impediment to widely deployed solar-power systems has been cost,” Baldo told Computerworld. “If you have a big building, you should be able to generate 50 to 60 watts per square meter. The thing with windows is you need a large area of windows. It makes a lot of sense with tall buildings or really big buildings.”
With companies looking to go green and cut down on the amount of money they’re spending on energy, solar power is gaining attention. And this advancement could help major buildings with lots of windows generate some of their own electricity.
Instead of covering a roof with expensive solar panels, the new solar cells need only to be around the edges of a flat glass panel. The concentrated light increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell by a factor of more than 40, noted Baldo.
To create the concentrator system, researchers mix multiple dyes that they basically paint onto a pane of glass or plastic. The dyes absorb light across a range of wavelengths. The energy then is pushed out to the edges of the pane, where it’s stored in solar cells there.
Baldo noted that the overall concept has been around since the 1970s but researchers then didn’t have the technology to move the energy from the middle of the pane to the edges without losing a lot of it along the way. The MIT researchers relied on different mixtures of dyes and used them in different ratios to give them greater control over light’s absorption and movement.
While the work is being touted as a way to turn windows into solar power generators, Baldo said that traditional solar panels on rooftops still provide the most energy. Using the solar concentrators in window panes is a less-expensive alternative.
Because the system is relatively simple to manufacture, MIT reported that it could be implemented within three years.
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