Interesting Development for Solar?

[StarEcho]

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...boosts-solar-panel-efficiency-by-a-massive-22

Read about this on Slashdot, which I highly recommend, btw, and thought some of us here might also be interested by this.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/...-chan-discs-help-boost-solar-panel-efficiency

I'll post the slashdot excerpt here and you can read the whole article on the extremetech website.

Jackie Chan Discs Help Boost Solar Panel Efficiency
Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 26, 2014 @04:16PM
from the super-solar-cop dept.
wbr1 writes
Apparently the pit pattern on a blu-ray disk is great at helping trap photons, rather than reflecting them. Applying this pattern to the glass in a solar panel can boost efficiency by 22%. Researchers at Northwestern tested this system with Jackie Chan discs. From the article: "To increase the efficiency of a solar panel by 22%, the researchers at Northwestern bought a copy of Police Story 3: Supercop on Blu-ray; removed the top plastic layer, exposing the recording medium beneath; cast a mold of the quasi-random pattern; and then used the mold to create a photovoltaic cell with the same pattern....The end result is a solar panel that has a quantum efficiency of around 40% — up about 22% from the non-patterned solar panel."

 

[kyonu]

Wow, 40% solar panel? That's pretty ridiculous.

Napkin math tells me that instead of 100 watt panels, you're doubling the efficiency from ~22% to ~40%. So a regular 100 watt panel would end up being around 190 watts on the same size! I love when small things like this make a world of difference.

 

[Almost There]

It makes perfect sense to me!

You're basically increasing the surface area of the solar panel by creating those little nano dips in it, thereby allowing more sun rays to work instead of bouncing off the flat surface.

The first question is why it's taken so long for anyone to figure this out.

The second question is how long do I have to wait for someone to start producing more efficient solar panels.

Wow, all by playing with Blu Ray discs.

 

[kyonu]

Well typical turn around for new technology is 10 years, so you'll probably wait 20 years before this is implemented... Or if you're lucky 10 years will be sufficient.

 

[Almost There]

Well typical turn around for new technology is 10 years, so you'll probably wait 20 years before this is implemented... Or if you're lucky 10 years will be sufficient.

Well, that just sucks...

I wonder if there's another approach that would work for DIYr's...

 

[kyonu]

DIY turn around is typically 2 years, so maybe!

 

[Seraphim]

Well, that just sucks...

I wonder if there's another approach that would work for DIYr's...

Got a ruler and a glass etcher? *grin*

 

[Almost There]

Got a ruler and a glass etcher? *grin*

Hmmm, I used to work with glass as in stained glass. Wonder what the etching materials that were/are available would do to glass used in solar panels....


I was thinking more in line with what could be applied over top of the glass to mimic the research.

And I just happen to have a decade old solar panel that came with the van. Have to wait for spring when the body shop removes it from the top of the van for me to play with it though..sigh. Course there's no amount of sun to test it out with anyways!