Concentrating on Solar Power

It's Bri again. This time, I'm bringing you a solar power update!

The sun has long been the primary energy source for life on Earth, and in the recent race to develop clean, alternative energy sources, many researchers are looking back towards the sun for answers.  There have been problems with solar power technology, which has historically made it less effective than other renewable sources. Fortunately, a team of scientists at MIT believes that it has overcome an obstacle in solar power production that has been haunting researchers for decades.

First, a little on solar technology – The solar energy we’re most familiar with is concentrating solar thermal (CST) power, in which solar panels capture sunlight to create heat. Less well-known is the process of concentrating photovoltactics (CPV), which harnesses sunlight and then converts it into electricity. With CPV, light is collected over a large area and is concentrated in one spot – usually on the edges of the glass panel that does the capturing. CPV has been looked upon favorably because it not only costs less than CST, but it has the potential to produce a greater amount of energy. The biggest long-standing problem with the system, however, is that much of the light collected by the solar panel is absorbed and lost before it can be transported to the edges to be converted into energy. It is a problem that has continually dissuaded people from developing CPV technology way to generate energy.

It is a problem that this MIT research team claims to be overcoming by fine-tuning a formerly abandoned device known as the luminescent solar concentrator, or LSC for short. Their technology uses colored glass to help in the absorption process.  As team leader Marc Baldo explains, “Light is absorbed by the dye coating and reemitted into the glass or plastic for collection by the solar cells.”  Apparently, the devices are not stable enough to be marketed on a mass scale yet, but Baldo believes that they will be able to overcome the stability issue in the near future.

This recent breakthrough just gives us one more good reason to embrace solar power as we transition from our coal and oil-based society to a more sustainable, renewable one. The costs to produce solar energy have already been falling, and once CPV technology is perfected, it is very likely that it can rival the cost of creating electricity from an electrical grid.

To see how your region stacks up in the solar energy department, visit: http://www.findsolar.com/

Comments

[Bev Samia]

Good job Bri, The more brains working on how to perfect solar power the better. They should have been doing this sooner. But I guess oil was still too cheap earlier.

[Sandra Malcolm]

I understand San Antonio has 9 Solar PV consumers. Does anyone have data or quantive feedback from these users to include pros and cons of their investment.

Also, I understand commercial Solar PV users have considerable state, federal and utility rebates that far exceed residentual users.

Is it true that California and Arizona are the major Solar PV states? If so, why not Texas? What other states offer rebates over and above Texas for residental Solar PV conversion?