“Human subtlety…will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.” Leonardo da Vinci
“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 avoiding heat build up in the PV.
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.
Imagine a 1MW solar farm requiring approx 7 acres with flat panel solar. With V3, the same energy output requires less than half an acre, saving on land cost, maintenance, weed control, cleaning, framing and other expenses. This dramatically reduces the Total Cost of Ownership, making more projects economically viable.
V3Solar has signed its first licensing agreement of 800,000 Spin Cells for what will potentially be the largest solar farm in the Southern Hemisphere.”
Source: V3Solar.com
Comment: The standard size V3 units are about 1m x 1m. I would like to see these scaled up to make roofs for small roundhouses like my Hobbit houses.
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That’s fantastic Owen, glad to see more green tech things like this.
Hah, those kind of remind me of the solar collectors from the Total Annihilation video game: http://www.total-annihilation.gonet.biz/images/solarnuke.jpg
That’s funny. I believe the V3 solar cells also have reflectors.
I routinely come across alternative energy systems like this one in my daily research and so I’ve decided to publish more of the best ones in the future. These systems enable people to produce their own energy at home (distributed energy) and live off the grid. Only the most promising energy systems will be featured here. Our focus will still be 99% natural building topics, but I believe there are quite a few readers who enjoy hearing about promising new alternative energy systems.