New Solar Technology - Holographic Tuning

With the renewed emphasis on renewable energy, new technologies are emerging. Holographic tuning is one such technology and could revolutionize solar cells.

Holographic Tuning

Traditional solar panel systems are not particularly efficient and can be more than a bit of an eyesore. Since the panel systems only convert a small amount of the sunlight that hits them, there really isn’t any alternative to placing the bulky beasts on your roof. Or is there?

Holographic tuning, also known as Holographic Planar Concentrator, is a new technology with one goal in mind – cheaper and small solar cell collectors. The technology is based on a unique theory in which solar cells are holographically tuned to attract and focus different spectrums of sunlight on solar cells. The cells are tuned to attract certain spectrums that can be converted without excessive heat production. This allows the cells to make the maximum amount of energy while maintaining a very small size.

Current silicon cell technology is restricted to only a few spectrums and is highly inefficient as it fails to covert up to 85 percent of the sunlight into power. To make things even better, the process is being designed to “tune” the solar light onto both sides of each cell, thus doubling the energy output.

The primary advantage of holographic tuning is it will revolutionize the solar panel as we know it. Instead of large, bulky panels that aren’t particularly attractive, holographic tuning panels will look similar to regular bedroom windows, but with five or six horizontal rows of black rectangles, the cells. The prototypes are actually very striking and are a major improvement over current solar panel systems.

Prism Solar Technologies is the leading company in the holographic tuning field. The company is a subsidiary of Direct Global Power, and is pursuing the advancement of the technology through an exclusive rights license from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Prism Solar Technologies intends to begin manufacturing of the new holographic tuning solar panels this year. Keep an eye out for these attractive, efficient solar panels.

Rick Chapo is with SolarCompanies.com, a directory of solar energy companies. Visit us to read more articles on solar power and renewable energy.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_Chapo

New Solar Tech for 2008

Our planet is warming, and we are helping make it happen by adding more heat-trapping gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), to the atmosphere. The burning of fossil fuel (oil, coal, and natural gas) alone accounts for about 75 percent of annual CO2 emissions from human activities. Deforestation—the cutting and burning of forests that trap and store carbon—accounts for about another 20 percent.

The United States currently produces 70 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, and oil, but only two percent from renewable sources. Since the burning of fossil fuels releases large amounts of carbon dioxide—the leading cause of global warming—but renewable energy does not, increasing the share of our electricity generated from renewable resources is one of the most effective ways to reduce global warming emissions.

There is a new wave in solar power tech. We are at the forefront of new innovations. However, these new designs will not be available until the beginning of 2008. REnU Polycrystalline or multi-crystalline solar cells in its core technology has already been proven to last in the field of over 25 years. It is on a par with current locked rates and fixed price guarantees.

Vertical integration of this system will produce clean power during peak sun hours. Interconnecting this solar system with electricity grids will offer excellent net metering in excess of generation.

There is no system purchase, no installation cost, no maintenance fees, no permit hassles, no performance worries, rate increases, and MUCH, MUCH, MORE advantages and benefits.

Rethink renewable energy and become part of the solution by installing a more environmentally friendly electricity-generating asset. Check out the short video on my website at http://jointhesolution.com/microcosm (upper right portion of the page).

Make your reservation today before our unique source of solar grade silicon manufacturing plants become active. You lock in the current rates of your electrical bill or the lowest rate. When the manufacturing plant reaches maximum production, solar systems could be installed on up to 100,000 homes per year. If you wait until the plants are completed, there will be tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of customers who will get their system before you.

Installation on select residential customer homes will be available as soon as panels are available. The wait could be much longer depending on when your local franchise is established and the distance of their location. (1 year minimum contract) To be a part of the solution to bring solar power to homeowners, please visit http://powur.com/microcosm.

Scientists agree that if we wait 10, 20, or 50 years, the problem will be much more difficult to address and the consequences for us will be that much more serious. Our atmosphere has limits too. CO2 remains in the atmosphere for about 100 years. The longer we keep polluting, the longer it will take to recover and the more irreversible damage will be done.

By investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency, and increasing the efficiency of the cars we drive, we can take essential steps toward reducing our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels that cause global warming. Using energy more efficiently and moving to renewable energy (wind, solar, geothermal, and bioenergy) would significantly reduce our emissions of heat-trapping gases.

For years we have heard so much about the causes of climate change, that we’ve missed the fact that there are simple, practical solutions that can slow this growing problem. Technologies exist today that can cut emissions of heat-trapping gases and make a real difference in the health of our planet. And these solutions will be good for our economy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and enhance our energy security. Kini at http://microcosm.ws

What if you could print solar panel using magic polymers?

New Polymer materials technology might lower the cost of electricity production using solar technology to below $1 per watt for the first time. This will finally enable mass-market, portable applications for photo-voltaic technology.

In the last technology report of Nature photonics, a new technology of materials for photovoltaic panel was introduced by Russell Gaudiana and Christoph Brabec.

Most of the photoactive materials used for photovoltaics in the past focused on silicon, which in fact dominates the commercial solar-energy field today. In recent years several other materials were tested as cheaper candidates for solar panel for instance amorphous silicon (a-Si), copper indiumgallium selenide (CIGS) and cadmium telluride (CdTe). All of these are now in different stages of commercialization. They all received the nick name: " thin-film technologies ", and they are considered cheaper in means of manufacturing and production throughput. These technology are expected to lower the consts of electricity production by solar devices to less than 1$ per watt.

However, a new technology has a better potential to dramatically lower the costs of solar energy production. This technology called "Bulk hetero-junction technology" is based on organic materials which are organic semiconductors, used as replacement to silicon. These new materials can be printed over sheets, with available roll-to-roll coating and printing techniques. This technology uses " abundantly available non-toxic materials, is based on a scalable production process with high productivity, and requires low investment from the manufacturer.

The idea is to use two different semiconductors called "p" and "n" with different conductance properties. Printing them together creates an electric device called diode. On light absorption, photo-induced charges are produced by ultra-fast charge transfer (few femto-seconds) between the two semiconductor types.

This technology encompasses carbon-based materials to use as "donor" and "acceptor" of electrons in the systems. The most popular class of organic donor molecules are conjugated polymers, like polythiophenes, polyfluorenes or polycarbazoles. The choice for acceptors is much narrower — for more than 10 years substituted fullerenes have given by far the best performance.

The advantage that separates this technology from all of the others is its compatibility with high-speed and low-temperature roll-to-roll processing. The procedures are similar to those used in the printing and coating industry in that solutions of the active materials, dissolved in organic solvents or water, are applied to a plastic sheet by means of a coating applicator.
Various printing and coating technologies have proven their compatibility with organic semiconductor processing, like flexo printing, gravure printing, screen printing, slot die coating and ink-jet printing.

Many advances in the past few years were done to improve the polymers efficiency and means of production. For more details, you should read this article at nature photonics VOL 2 MAY 2008 www.nature.com/naturephotonics

Nanosolar a leader in the drive to make solar affordable -

Nanosolar has developed proprietary technology that makes it possible to simply roll-print solar cells that require only 1/100th as thick an absorber as a silicon-wafer cell yet deliver similar performance and durability. Efficient and durable thin-film CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Diselenide) and innovated production throughput deliver the world’s most cost-efficient solar electricity cell.

According to their home page, Nanosolar is on track to make solar electricity:

* cost-efficient for ubiquitous deployment
* mass-produced on a global scale
* available in many versatile forms

The spray-on film is printed on a material that can be rolled out on any surface, so it could be built into building materials such as roof tiles and windows.

Nanosolar says that their panels will be the world's lowest-cost solar panel, selling for as little as $.99/Watt

great video about israel's new solar technologies

This video present a nice overview of isreal great technologies for solar power. this small country is lack of natural resources but have a lot of sun...

I think that both technologies are great, but the second is more practical for large scale production. the first one is more promising for the future, and need some more fine tunning to become realisctic and economical.
good luck to these scientists.
enjoy.