Solarpower Breakthrough at IBM
Posted on May 18, 2008 under Electricity, Heating, Solar power |
You probably know how you can use a magnifying glass to concentrate solar power into a small spot and start a fire. The solar power researchers at IBM have taken it a step further and managed to concentrate incoming solar energy by a factor of 2300, equaling about 230 watts of power on a square centimeter. This energy could then be converted into about 70 watts of usable electric energy. The biggest problem with concentrating the suns rays this much is that it heats the solar cells to about 1600 degrees Celsius, which would melt them. IBM however is an expert at cooling high power computer chips and managed to keep the solar cells at a ‘cool’ 85 degrees Celsius!
Read IBM’s press release here
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June 5th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
With that much heat needed to be taken away from the panel you probably dont need many panel surface to heat your house.
A 10 by 10 cm panel would make 7000 watts of electricity plus much heat. This sounds great