Solar company announces solar cell breakthrough...

Solar Company Announces Solar Cell Breakthrough...

Ecospree


By Antonio Pasolini of Energy Refuge



A Californian company called HyperSolar earlier this week announced that new solar design models “show potential magnification of 300%”. HyperSolar develops technology that increases the power output of solar cells, one of the technological challenges the industry faces.



“We believe that a critical advancement will be to actually control the delivery of sunlight onto solar cells. We are developing the world’s first thin and flat light magnification layer for direct application on top of standard solar cells to increase their power output”, said HyperSolar’s CEO, Tim Young. “Our plan is to move to the prototype stage early next year and then to a commercial product.”



The magnification layer employs thousands of very small light collectors on the surface that funnel light into a proprietary light routing network in the middle. From there, light is carried to a smaller output area on the bottom where a solar cell can be attached.



Instead of using three solar cells to cover an area on a solar panel, only one solar cell is needed underneath a 300% layer called HyperSolar layer. The company says this will allow solar panel manufacturers to reduce the number of expensive solar cells in their panels by 66%, reducing the cost per watt of their solar panels.



“The higher the light magnification in the HyperSolar layer, the higher the power magnification of the attached solar cell. As part of our development plan, we are exploring various designs and microphotonic elements to increase the magnification by as much as 400% in the final product”, Mr. Young said.

Eco Spree - Solar Cell Breakthrough

Optical Battery Discovery Could Mean Solar Power Without Solar Cells...

Optical Battery Discovery Could Mean Solar Power Without Solar Cells...

 

 

From EarthTechling's Caleb Denison:
Researchers at the University of Michigan have made a scientific discovery that is intriguing all on its own but it is the breakthrough’s potential applications in solar power generation that have them excited.

According to Stephen Rand, a professor at the university and author of the paper that discusses his team’s discovery in the “Journal of Applied Physics”, the researchers found a way to make an “optical battery” which harnesses the magnetic attributes in light that, until now, scientists didn’t think amounted to much of anything.

The report explains that light has both electric and magnetic components but, until now, scientists believed the magnetic field effects were weak enough that they could be ignored. Rand and his fellow researchers, however, found that at the right intensity, when light is traveling through a material that does not conduct electricity, the light field can generate magnetic effects that are 100 million times stronger than thought possible. Under these circumstances, says Rand, the magnetic fields become similar in strength to a strong electric effect.

William Fisher, a doctoral student in applied physics, says that what makes this possible is “a previously undetected brand of “optical rectification.” In traditional optical rectification, light’s electric field causes positive and negative charges to be pulled apart in a material. That sets up voltage, similar to a battery.

Read more here:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/29/optical-battery-discovery-solar_n_855499.html

http://ecolive.tv/

http://planetgreen-discovery.com/videos/

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The world's first solar powered motorway in Italy...

Image via WikipediaThe world's first solar powered motorway is in Italy. Surprisingly enough the very first motorway of any description was also in Italy. If I was a betting man I would have put my money on Germany, but its autobahns never arrived until the 1930's.

The very first motorway was the A8 Milano - Laghi (Milano - Lakes as it connects the city of Milan to Lake Como and Maggiore) and was completed in 1926. Time has certainly passed since those early days and every developed country  now has  motorway networks - strategic structures that help the inter-connection of people and places and is ultimately essential to a country's economic growth.

Now Italy has completed a new first and a new phase with the construction of theA18 Catania - Siracusa motorway - a 30km addition to Sicily's 600km motorway network - a fully solar-powered motorway, the very first of its kind.

http://ecospree.com/italian-roads-go-solar-with first-sun-powered-motorway/

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