An important breakthrough has been made in solar power technology. A University of Missouri engineer has developed a flexible solar power sheet that can capture up to 95 per cent of sunlight.
This is way more than the average 20 per cent that present solar panels can achieve. Some studies indicate most PV solar panels can have as low as 10 per cent efficiency in converting sunlight into electricity.
Patrick Pinhero, an associate professor in the University of Missouri Chemical Engineering Department, plans to make prototypes within the next five years. Typical photovoltaic methods of solar collection are inefficient and waste much of the available sunlight.
The device that his team developed makes it possible to harvest the heat from industrial processes and convert it to electricity. His new solar panel design is a thin, flexible sheet of small antennas called NanTenna.
He plans to improve this concept so that it can be capable of collecting solar irradiation in the infrared and optical regions of the solar spectrum. These regions are untouched by present solar panels.
Working with Pinhero in this project are his former team members at the Idaho National Laboratory and Garrett Moddel, who is an electrical engineering professor at the University of Colorado. The team managed to discover a method to extract electricity from heat and sunlight through special high-speed electrical circuitry.
They plan to port the laboratory bench-sized technology to a working device for the consumers that can be mass-produced to decrease the costs. It is their goal to collect and utilize solar energy and to bring it to the masses in a cheap package.
If they are successful then it would be a quantum leap from current solar energy technologies, which are inefficient. The team is now securing a grant from the United States Department of Energy and private investors.
The second phase of their rollout plan is to have the energy harvesting device ready for industrial infrastructures, which include solar farms and heat process plants. Their target is to have their product ready to complement the existing PV solar panels in five years.
Because it is a flexible film, Pinhero said that it can be part of roof shingle products or incorporated into solar power cars. Once the funding problem is resolved, Pinhero will focus on spin-off products, such as infrared detection.
Practical uses include contraband identifying products for military and airports, infrared line of sight telecommunications and optical computing.