This sounds better. For one, you don't have a pressurized flat plate, which would be hard to engineer compared to a tube -- imagine the pressure on a 3 x 5 foot piece of glass with pressurized fluid behind it. Not that a large flat box with pressurized fluid in it would have to be at very high pressure if it was a drainback type system. But I like the cascading fluid better. You could do it as cascading without a front cover at all, but then you'd collect loads of dust (and other debris, animals, etc), so that would over time block more light than the extra piece of glass.
With the high heat transfer of a liquid though, a system with fluid touching only the back of the PV cells might be sufficient though. But then you are back to requiring a filled fluid resevoir instead of a trickle, since the back of the PV module would be downward facing. Hmmmmmm. On 5/16/06, Michael Redler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Who says that the PV cells have to be immersed in the oil? > > If the modules were in the glass box and standing (more or less) upright, > the oil coolant could simply be cascaded over the modules. Even if the oil > had relatively high photoabsorption compared to water (for example), there > would only be a thin film to penetrate. > > Any thoughts? > > Mike > > > Chip Mefford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hakan Falk wrote: > > Mike, > > > > Many of the high voltage transformers in > > electricity distribution are filled with oil for > > insulation and cooling purposes. > > In this case I > > belive it is mineral oils, but it is many years > > (40) since I worked with this and do not completely trust my memory. > > They were, > > and 40 years ago, they were filled with that marvelous compound > that did everything exactly right. Polychlorinatedbiphenol. > > Great stuff all in all, just had one drawback > > >SNIP > > _______________________________________________ > Biofuel mailing list > Biofuel@sustainablelists.org > http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 > messages): > http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ > > > > _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
