MIT.. Invents Solar Cubes .20 times that of fixed flat panels with the same base area.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Intensive research around the world has focused on improving the performance of solar photovoltaic cells and bringing down their cost. But very little attention has been paid to the best ways of arranging those cells, which are typically placed flat on a rooftop or other surface, or sometimes attached to motorized structures that keep the cells pointed toward the sun as it crosses the sky.
Now, a team of MIT researchers has come up with a very different approach: building cubes or towers that extend the solar cells upward in three-dimensional configurations. Amazingly, the results from the structures they’ve tested show power output ranging from double to more than 20 times that of fixed flat panels with the same base area.
http://web.mit.edu/press/2012/three-dimensional-solar-energy.html
Oil and Gas will soon give way to new paradigm.
= new reply since forum marked as read
See the image:
Sadly, it's being misunderstood to mean solar panels that are far more efficient but you can see even from the model that they are using ordinary PV cells.
Sure, more power per footprint area is all, but by no means is it more power per dollar spent or per surface area of PV material.
Cool, but misleading, I'm afraid.
