How many Suns can be focused on a Solar Cell? What is limitation. What causes this limitation?
Question:
How many Suns can be focused on a pv cell? What is limitation?
Upto HOW MANY SUNs the cell can work SAFELY(not burn out) and EFFICIENTLY?
Answer:
The problem is heat. All the light that is NOT turned into electricity converts to heat.
With a photo cell with 20% efficiency, 80% of the incoming radiation will just become heat. ~
Solar cells can only stand so much heat, and then they fry.
Full sunlight gives up about 1 horsepower (735W European to 745 W American) per sq meter.
They are working on new compact solar cells that can handle more heat and provide more power for their size. The reason they are working on this is so that they can make cheaper cells because they use less material. The problem with them is that even if you had a solar cell that could handle large amounts of heat and light you still have to have a lot of square area of reflectors to focus the light. There is no way of improving the amount of sunlight hitting the ground. I think the alternative is better. They are also working on thin film solar cells. It would be better if they can simply reduce the price and environmental impact of the cell itself. If they are cheap and durable then who cares about efficiency?
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