https://solarthermalmagazine.com/2014/11/21/low-cost-solar-panel-captures-four-times-more-energy-producing-solar-electricity-and-hot-water/
[image in on-line article]
By Press Release Solar PV, Solar Thermal Energy
November 21, 2014
Low-Cost Solar Panel Captures Four Times More Energy Producing Solar
Electricity and Hot Water
Solar Electricity and Hot Water ( Solar Thermal Magazine) – Focused Sun
of Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA is planning to shake up the solar
industry with an inexpensive module that captures four times more energy
than a conventional solar panel of the same size. The module, called
FourFold, produces both electricity and hot water. It can pay for itself
in as little as two years, bringing local jobs plus cheap, clean energy.
For every dollar spent, you capture four fold more solar energy.
A FourFold covers most of modern energy needs: its electricity powers
lights, refrigerators and air cooling, while its heat can warm a home or
drive boilers. In the developing world, the module is needed in village
clinics where it can sterilize water and refrigerate vaccines.
The fabrication technology to make FourFold solar modules in small local
factories can be licensed from Focused Sun. A town as small as 5,000 can
support a solar factory. These aren’t short term jobs: most towns and
small cities will take decades to solarize.
Costs of the module’s collector are similar to a same-sized conventional
PV panel because sandwich fabrication is used for the module’s mirrors.
Sandwich fabrication is the most efficient structure for resisting the
wind, the highest force a solar panel must withstand.
Conventional PV solar panels capture 20% of the sun’s energy as
electricity. In the FourFold module, four mirrors concentrate the
sunlight into a narrow strip of overhead PV cells, capturing just as
much electricity. More important, coolant pumped through the absorber
captures an additional 55% of the sun’s energy as heat. Altogether, the
FourFold collects 75% of the sun’s energy, 500 W of electricity and 1500
W of heat for 2000 W total.
The attached shed stores energy overnight: heat in an insulated tank and
electricity in batteries. With low costs and high efficiency solar
capture, payback can be as low as 2 years.
Focused Sun founder Rene Francis (Hallsberg, Sweden) said, “This solar
technology can outperform anything else you could find in the world. And
the best part is it can be built locally.” Referring to Princeton
University’s eight stabilization wedges needed to avoid global warming,
he adds,
"If PV solar is one Princeton wedge, then this technology is four
wedges. That’s half the global warming problem."
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