Solar concentration on solar panel

[danie]

What will happen if you concantrate sunlight on a solar panel.

Will you get more electricity from it or will it only heat up.

[DrDNA]

What will happen if you concantrate sunlight on a solar panel.

Will you get more electricity from it or will it only heat up.

 

In many cases, you will reduce the total area of silicon needed to produce a given amount of electricity.

 

So, lenses or mirrors are sometimes used to concentrate sun light on solar panels.

[CaptainPanic]

You will get more electricity from it.

As an approximation, you can assume that it goes up linear with more sunlight.

[Mr Skeptic]

As I understand it, some solar panels work best in concentrated light. I don't know if the solar panel is more efficient with more light, or if those solar panels are expensive and so a setup with more mirrors and less panels is cheaper, or both.

[iNow]

Well, think about it this way. The light causes electrons to move. More light would seem to cause more electron movement, so focusing it helps. However, I'm pretty sure there's an upper limit, too, but that would depend on the process used to manufacture the panel and the structure of it's components and "channels."

[bbbrrr22]

if the sun is lower in the sky or a light layer of clouds or con-trails is present the current output from the solar panels will drop. If you get a particularly nice sunny day during the best time of year and time of day you will see your highest output.

 

So it goes without saying that more light will give you more output.

 

There will be a maximum output though, based on the size of the wires where you get diminishing returns and there is the heat factor as well. So you will need to determine how hot the cells can run and the maximum current output they can handle. Then make sure that you don't send more light along than this.

 

You will likely need to do some experimenting or reading a lot of datasheets and asking the manufacturer a lot of questions. I don't know if solar cells have a shorter life if they get hotter or if they run at a different efficiency if their temperature is higher. These would be good questions to find out

 

What you may find is that just buying another panel is cheaper than building and keeping a mirror or lense clean. That will be another variable in the equation at any rate.

[CaptainPanic]

I agree with bbbrrr22 (nice nickname )... the investment of the mirror alone is low. But the additional costs might be quite a lot.

I believe that the main reason why mirrors aren't used to increase solar panel output is:

 

Solar panels are put on roofs. If you want to add a mirror, it will not be flat on the roof (since it needs to be at an angle to the solar panel), and it will require a 100% safe, storm-proof construction which is actually quite expensive. It will stick out, and easily catch wind. You must guarantee (probably with certificates and paperwork) that: 1) the roof is strong enough to support the forces, 2) that the added construction is strong enough too, and 3) that all this investments will pay back.

[iNow]

People should recall that the surface area of solar panels are already tweaked to reflect light toward the collector cells. It's at a rather tiny scale, so not the same as a large focussing mirror, but focussing still occurs all the same.

[YT2095]

I will point out that it Is possible to Over do it as well, and fry them!

I`v done it myself a few times, you`ll notice their efficiency start to drop off pretty quickly, and it`s a one way trip! you can`t recover them afterwards.

so Do remember to excersize a little restraint when concentrating the lux density