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MIT Develops New Solar Energy System

Posted on: Friday, 11 July 2008, 00:20 CDT

Scientists have created an efficient solar power device that they believe will make renewable energy affordable. Experts have been enthusiastic about energy sources that do not involve fossil fuels.

Solar energy, which is the process of harnessing the power of sunlight to make electricity, has seemed the most promising. Unfortunately, solar energy has not been very cost efficient.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently described their progress on a new type of “solar concentrator” in the journal Science. They believe the new technology will provide a more efficient way to collect solar energy.

The scientists coated glass sheets in organic dyes to concentrate the sunlight that hit the panels.  The dyes collected the sunlight and carried the light to the edges of the panel much like fiber-optic cable.

Solar cells located on the edges of the panels then transforms the sunlight into electricity.

"It consists of just a piece of glass with a layer of paint on top of it," said Marc Baldo, MIT electrical engineering professor and lead researcher on the solar panels.

"The idea is the light comes in and hits the paint. The paint then bounces the light out to the edges of the glass. All you need is the solar cells on the edges. So we think we can use this to reduce the cost of solar electricity," he added

Jonathan Mapel, another MIT researcher working on the project, said the goal of this study is to use this type of technology to bring the cost of solar power closer to the cost of fossil fuels like coal.

"One of the challenges with solar (energy) in general is that it's just too high in cost. And what you'd like to do is reduce the price of solar electricity," Mapel said.

Organic solar concentrators collect and focus different colors of sunlight. Solar cells can be attached to the edges of the plates.

Up to this point, solar concentrators have used mirrors and lenses to focus sunlight to solar cells.  The panels used in this project are light, and flat, and could easily be placed on roofs, or in windows to generate electricity.

According to Baldo, another benefit of the new system is that it does not have to track the progression of the sun to collect light.

The scientists believe their system could be available to the public within three years.  They also believe the new solar-panels could be incorporated into current systems to help improve efficiency.

"This accomplishment demonstrates the critical importance of innovative basic research in bringing about revolutionary advances in solar energy utilization in a cost-effective manner," said Aravinda Kini of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. The department sponsored the study.

The researchers are now forming a company called Covalent Solar, based out of Boston, to market and develop the new system.

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On the Net:

www.mit.edu

Source: redOrbit staff and wire reports

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