I have a special engineering question, In solar energy cells, is it manufactured a form of photocells in spherical shape? It seems so efficient to design such cells for attractions the sun light all over the day, whitout the expense costs of traditional photocells which computerized with sensors and motivating motors and.... that is really complex and expensive. So, I will be glad to hear from your engineers about this, Thanks for your comprehensive website and your environmental responsibility.
hi dear,
there was one US company Solyndra, which manufactured cylindrical solar cell. the claim was it can capture solar energy at 360 degree. the company filed bankruptcy. the rest details you can find online.
thanks a lot, but it seems that spherical photocell, in comparison with cylindrical, can capture sunlight better, if the related technological manufacture be in access, without the need of mirror and the loss of bilateral faces....and it is also possible to design a sphere with multi square surfaces, that in sum tends to sphere surface....
it is also established that single axis (either vertical or horizontal) produces less energy than two axis (both vertical and horizontal combined). the difference is more than 20%. so a spherical collector will produce more energy for sure.
I am not so optimistic! First, is you spherical cell a single junction or an array of planar cells arranged over the surface of a sphere? Cells can only capture solar energy that falls on them, so at any instant most of your sphere will be doing very little, only the area close to the axis from the centre of the cell to the sun will be producing full power. So if your device is a single junction, you will have in effect a moderate photocurrent source in parallel with a lot of cell producing no photocurrent, but with its shunt impedance and shunt diode. This will behave like a cell that is largely shaded. Although you won't need to steer the cell, I would imagine the structure alone could be more expensive than a dual axis steered array. By all means try it as a research project - but as Abdelhalim mentions, at least one company producing unconventionally shaped cells has gone bankrupt. I would not want any others to do so!
Hi Kaveh,
There are other sides to Tony's argument as well !
In most terrestrial applications, the irradiance includes direct, reflected, and diffused components of light.
The two components mentioned are not received as beams along a straight line path - they take various detours to the receiver. So how a spherical or cylindrical receiver will work with them is rather questionable !!
As you probably see by now, "...efficient to design such cells for attractions the sun light all over the day..." is easier said than done !!
Cheers !
-Sanjay
As Sanjoy righly points out, there are other sources of energy in a real environment - but they aren't large. The hazier the day, the higher the proportion of energy supplied by indirect light - but, at the same time, the less the overall energy reaching the array because of absorption in the atmosphere. If you have a single cell partly shaded, that is bad enough. If you have an array connected in series with part of it shaded, that is bad. You have to bypass the shaded part with diodes which in effect switch that part of the cell out of circuit, making it effectively useless. So any indirect light reaching it won't be doing anything, anyway.
Besides Tony,
Let us not overlook the hassles associated with differential losses and localized overheating in parallel connected receivers - all due to partial shading !
In fact ahead of the configuration suggested by Kaveh, such well known issues continue to challenge PV stations affected by cloud transients !!
Cheers !
-Sanjay
Dear respected Kaveh Keshavarzi,
A solar panel in a spherical shape is a spherical sun power generator which could be potentially more efficient than a standard flat surface solar panel. This spherical sun power generator combines spherical geometry principles with a dual axis sun tracking system. The spherical sun power generator can track sunlight in all direction.
Best regards
Kifilideen
Dear respected Kaveh Keshavarzi,
The glass sphere of the solar panel is used to concentrate diffused sunlight into a small surface of tiny solar panels. The ball lens is able to concentrate and diffuse light on one small focal point, which means less material used to create solar cells and also more efficiency.
Best regards
Kifilideen
Dear respected Kaveh Keshavarzi,
The spherical solar panel uses multiple optical elements - such as mirrors and lenses - to reflect light into a super concentrated beam that is aimed at a solar cell. It has a surface of tiny photovoltaic panels, also known as the collector, which is mounted on a dual axis tracking system, which travels with the sun in order to face the sun perpendicularly at all times. It does this to maximize the conversion efficiency of the sun's rays. By having this tracking system constantly moving the collector to maximize efficiency, the spherical sun power generator can double the yield of a conventional (flat face) solar panel in a much smaller surface area. The yield would be similar compared to a conventional solar panel with a tracking system. The spherical solar panel is apparently even able to concentrate moonlight unlike conventional solar panels.
Best regards
Kifilideen
You cannot use a ball lens to concentrate light from all over the sky dome onto a given small point. Basic optics. To see why, just reverse the direction of the light rays. Starting from a small point, where do they go? Also the lens has to be solid - and for a lens of any size the weight and cost become prohibitively expensive.
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