A more rationalized solar panel?

[weijing3333]

Would it be possible to use a lens or a mirror to focus light onto a solar panel in order to product in more efficient?

And is something like this already one used?

It was just a thought and I haven't spent much time on it, but I figured I'd ask.

[TomW]

I am pretty sure that this has been done (PV solar concentrators) but I seem to remember it was very hard on the cells and resulted in  shortened lifespan. California, I think and the installation was not very successful and dismantled. I remember the used panels being on Ebay or something.

Can't remember details.

Tom

[weijing3333]

do you know Renesola? or yinglisolar? or trina? how about these solar panels?

[RossW]

Would it be possible to use a lens or a mirror to focus light onto a solar panel in order to product in more efficient?
And is something like this already one used?

Look up the "Sun ball" and later "Sun cube" from a mob of shysters here in Australia. greg watson and green-and-gold energy or something. DO NOT under ANY circumstances invest any money in their deceptions. They've plundered tens or hundreds of millions of dollars from people and as far as I know, haven't produced a single kilowatt-hour of real-world power.

The concept was good. Triple-layer solar cells for spacecraft. Fresnel lenses. Built-in solar tracking and inverters. It was all there, just that greed and lies got in the way, his designs were too complex to fabricate and the devices ultimately I think too flimsy, but worst of all was his PR. Just a disaster.

Anyhow, the concept was proven, we just need someone honest to make and market it! You up for a challenge??

[ClassicCrazy]

Many years ago there used to be someone at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in Wisconsin who made panels that concentrated the light . I think the problem was they were too big and bulky and took too much aluminum to make the case of it. From what I remember it may have had Fresnel lenses on it too. 

[littleharbor2]

 Now defunct SolFocus  http://www.isetc.org/English/Archives/201010/Presentations/ISETC-2010-Oct20-Phil_Metz.pdf
Manufactured a Concentrator Solar module which used parabolic dish mirrors and prism lenses to concentrate the suns intensity 650 times. They had catered more to commercial solar installations having megawatt solar farms worldwide. Probably their biggest flaw was the fact that for these modules to work at all they have to be on dual axis trackers, coupled with the fact they were much more expensive to manufacture, per watt than conventional solar module technology.
I had purchased a couple surplus pallets of these modules and got to play with them before selling them off. They were bulky, approx. 3 1/2' x 5' x 8" thick 315 watts at about 65 volts. They had 20 parabolic dishes per module. When metering them I did verify the output was nearly zero until you pointed them directly at the sun, then bang, full power