cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/24690127
Solar energy experts in Germany are putting sun-catching cells under the magnifying glass with astounding results, according to multiple reports.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems team is perfecting the use of lenses to concentrate sunlight onto solar panels, reducing size and costs while increasing performance, Interesting Engineering and PV Magazine reported.
The “technology has the potential to contribute to the energy transition, facilitating the shift toward more sustainable and renewable energy sources by combining minimal carbon footprint and energy demand with low levelized cost of electricity,” the researchers wrote in a study published by the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics.
The sun-catcher is called a micro-concentrating photovoltaic, or CPV, cell. The lens makes it different from standard solar panels that convert sunlight to energy with average efficiency rates around 20%, per MarketWatch. Fraunhofer’s improved CPV cell has an astounding 36% rate in ideal conditions and is made with lower-cost parts. It cuts semiconductor materials “by a factor of 1,300 and reduces module areas by 30% compared to current state-of-the-art CPV systems,” per IE.
They need changes in laws too. Instead of chewing up open space and farmland I’d rather see more urban areas used like parking lots and industrial sites.
Yeah, Don’t put the solar farms in meadows, or on mountains. put them on warehouse roofs, over highways, over parking lots, on government buildings, etc etc.
Roughly 50% of germany is used as farmland. On 60% of the farmland crops to feed livestock are grown. On 20% of it crops for energyproduction (biofuel, biogas). If you take for example rapeseeds, used for biodiesel, you would harvest around 50 times as much energy with a pv-plant on the same area. You would need to install pv on 5-6% of the farmland to produce enough electric energy for all of germany for a year. Granted you also can provide the grid for it and enoguh storage.
Not only that, but livestock can still graze under panels, on grass that often grows just as well with a little shade.
Surely the grass would grow better with more son(?)