SPECIAL FEATURES:
Email
Solar goes Hyper in the U.S.
HyperSolar magnifying film can increase solar panel efficiency by up to 300%, making solar competitive with fossil fuels.
Wed, Feb 09 2011 at 3:08 PM
Related Topics:
Image courtesy of HyperSolar
As the U.S. government continues to heap billions in subsidies to the world's wealthiest coal and oil companies, the solar industry has been struggling to make it in the United States. This is sad for many reasons, not the least of which is that we're missing out on one of the biggest growth industries in the world.
Currently there are 16 gigawatts of installed solar power globally. That number will grow to about 1,800 gigawatts in the next 20 years, making it one of the best job creators. U.S. engineers invented the solar panel, and the U.S. should be dominating that market. Instead, foreign manufacturers (particularly in China) have taken our IP and run with it, as we become increasingly dependent on foreign oil and dirty coal operations to meet our power needs.
Fortunately HyperSolar, a new U.S. company, offers a ray of sunny hope on the clean energy frontier.
The company does not manufacture solar panels. It makes them ultra-efficient using a field of science called photonics. Similar to a microchip that moves individual bits of data around at hyperspeed, HyperSolar's thin magnifying film routes and separates specific light spectrums, delivering them exactly where they're needed to make an array of PV solar cells ultra-efficient.
I saw an early prototype for such a magnifying optical layer a few years back, but the company was "dark" at the time, so I couldn't write about the innovation. But I'm as excited now as I was then for good reason — HyperSolar's optical layer can increase PV efficiency by up to 300 percent!
Theoretically that means cutting the installation cost of a solar array in half. Instead of a home solar system costing $30,000 (or more) it would only cost $15,000 (or less), making the upfront investment much lower and payback periods much quicker.
This is a great example of a disruptive technology that could get us to the holy grail of "grid parity" — meaning that solar would be as affordable as other sources of energy like coal and natural gas. And no more polluting coal mines or fracking for natural gas! The sun (for at least the next 5 billion years) will provide free and abundant energy. It's up to us whether we want to invest in that technology or continue to destroy our beautiful landscapes for a few more years of "cheap" (i.e. heavily subsidized) coal.
Innovations like this make several recent reports ring true. If we have the political will to overcome the stranglehold of the fossil fuel industry on our nation's energy policy, we could become 100 percent renewably powered in a 2030-2050 time frame. Check out these two reports and a new study by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) about how large-scale wind power is now cost-competitive with natural gas:
- Physorg.com: 100 percent renewables by 2030
- WWF: 100 percent renewables (no nuclear) by 2050
- AWEA: Wind cost-competitive with gas
So, what do you think? Can we kick the fossil fuel habit?
Also on MNN:
The opinions expressed by MNN Bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of MNN.com. While we have reviewed their content to make sure it complies with our Terms and Conditions, MNN is not responsible for the accuracy of any of their information.
You might also like:
Sign in with one of these accounts to add your comment.
EDITORS' PICKS
Advertisement
TODAY'S MOST POPULAR ON
- 13 natural remedies for the ant invasion
- 7 surprising things Pope Francis has done in his first 100 days
- What a grocery store without bees looks like
- Henry Cavill's 'Man of Steel' workout video
- 10 false facts most people think are true
- 9 habits that may do more harm than good
- 8 astonishing benefits of walking
- Muggle scientists develop Harry Potter 'Marauder's Map' technology
- Watch: Sir David Attenborough deals with a band of cannibals the British way
- Student science experiment finds plants won't grow near Wi-Fi router
From our sponsor
NEWSLETTER
Advertisement
actually i don't understand how some people don't see that heading to solar & wind energy is a MUST! how many coming years they think we can depend on oil, coal, or even nuclear fuel?!
agree :)
"and if you do not approve of something you are not compelled to purchase it with the exception of car insurance."
Yeah, and now health insurance and then....what next?
And lets not forget Tax's
But if the government were to tax religious organizations, that would be a violation of the much-touted-by-the-left separation of church and state. Are you ok with it in this case because it benefits you?
Ooops, a correction, I mentioned 2.4 kW is not a lot of energy, it's actually a unit of power. So, that's not a lot of power.
You forget that a grid connected system like her's feed excess power to the grid when it's not being used, then pulls more out of the grid (at night, when it's cloudy) when household use exceeds panel output. The sum total of power used in a year is less than the sum total of power produced by the panels. When she's brewing coffee and running that hair dryer in the morning, she's pulling from the grid. When she's at work and the lights are off, she's providing power to the grid.
It is just another concentrator. Maybe cheaper than others, big deal! Quoting a number like 300% improvement is nothing but marketing hype, simply dishonest.
If you had any clues you would know that this is not a concentrator but actually a "SEPARATOR". There is big difference there. I am not telling you what it is because your brain does not have the capacity to know the difference.
"I am not telling you what it is because your brain does not have the capacity to know the difference."
What an astonishingly childish comment.
Enter your comments
Listen Basilio, I know more of these things than you'll ever able to dream. I did not go into detail. Separating, as you put is, the sun's spectrum maybe new to you, but it is standard in the field of high efficiency, e.i. expensive, solar technology. Repeat, this field extremely mature, there no magical breakthroughs left, just slow plodding.
Nature relies on sunshine falling on the ground to keep the Earth's temperatures stable. Absorbing the suns energy and converting it to electricity will result in vast areas under solar arrays becoming permafrost, leading the global cooling. The greater the efficiency of the solar cells, the faster the global cooling will occur.
Under natural conditions, a significant proportion of sunlight (and sun energy) is reflected back into space. Solar panels are designed to trap as much of it as possible. Consequently, solar panels should contribute to a net warming of the Earth. My guess is this is much less a factor than the world's asphalt highways, but it's still a net gain of energy.
When a solar cell converts light to electricity the energy is not destroyed and it is not reflected back into space. virtually all of the energy will EVENTUALLY be converted to heat even if it is used in efficient devices. The operation of a solar powered air conditioner will generate heat through the operation of the electric motor, for instance (this is in addition to the home's/building's interior heat being carried outside).
By your logic there should be permafrost under every building. News flash: there isn't except in areas where there is permafrost already (because the sun doesn't heat the ground daily for large portions of the year). And since most solar panels are mounted on existing buildings, your assertion is doubly ridiculous. But even if it was true, the additional cooling could help the global warming...
Pages