this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
532 points (97.2% liked)

Technology

72841 readers
1887 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
L4s@hackingne.ws
532
Scientists make game-changing breakthrough that could slash costs of solar panels: 'Has the potential to contribute to the energy transition' (www.thecooldown.com)
submitted 1 day ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world
101 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/24690127

Solar energy experts in Germany are putting sun-catching cells under the magnifying glass with astounding results, according to multiple reports.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems team is perfecting the use of lenses to concentrate sunlight onto solar panels, reducing size and costs while increasing performance, Interesting Engineering and PV Magazine reported.

The "technology has the potential to contribute to the energy transition, facilitating the shift toward more sustainable and renewable energy sources by combining minimal carbon footprint and energy demand with low levelized cost of electricity," the researchers wrote in a study published by the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics.

The sun-catcher is called a micro-concentrating photovoltaic, or CPV, cell. The lens makes it different from standard solar panels that convert sunlight to energy with average efficiency rates around 20%, per MarketWatch. Fraunhofer's improved CPV cell has an astounding 36% rate in ideal conditions and is made with lower-cost parts. It cuts semiconductor materials "by a factor of 1,300 and reduces module areas by 30% compared to current state-of-the-art CPV systems," per IE.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 42 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

A lighthouse uses the same lens, just with the light coming from the inside. Since this is old knowledge, what is the drawback? Why isn't this widespread?

My completely uninformed guess:

  • The lens and assembly costs too much compared to just more solar panels

  • The lens/panel combo is so bulky/prone to failure it becomes unreasonable to actually install/use.

[–] brendansimms@lemmy.world 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Adding to what Eldest_Malk said: They aren't just putting a new type of lens over standard solar cells, they are also designing/fabricating custom cells to work with the lenses. [I'm not a PV expert, but the fact that the IEEE paper focuses so much on the cells and not just the lenses leads me to believe that the lenses can't just be used with whatever standardized solar cells are on the market]

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 points 22 hours ago

The cells are super expensive but super small. They need cooling for efficiency, but if the heat moving is useful, can ignore the energy cost.

[–] rem26_art@fedia.io 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

id guess a lot went into designing a solar cell that could take being heated to 167F without losing efficiency or breaking. I think most common house solar panels have a temperature coefficient listed on their datasheet that measures how much its ability to generate power decreases per every degree above 77F

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 2 points 12 hours ago

Tech ingredients did a test with active cooling on standard solar panels and found the energy to cool it was about what was gained by having a cooler panel.

The upshot should be longer life if the panel though, so the conclusion was still a net gain.

[–] anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz 17 points 1 day ago

They mention standardisations and cost savings in their paper, as well as solving the heat load per cell problem by decreasing cell size. They also mention that there's been a lot of micro-CPV module designs but that they haven't been scaled up. Some quotes below:

Various researchers and developers have been exploring different micro-CPV module designs [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]. Most approaches have been tested on small prototypes or minimodules, while fewer have been realized with aperture areas (Aap) above 200 and 800 cm2,[...]

By decreasing the sizes of the primary optics and the solar cells, the heat load per cell is minimized. This reduction allows for sufficient heat spreading via the circuit board, enabling the direct assembly of solar cells onto the circuit board on glass.

At Fraunhofer ISE, we have developed a micro-CPV module concept [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], which is based on parallelized manufacturing processes and commercially available components.

The final module features a panel size of 24” × 18”, which is a standard in the microelectronics industry, facilitating machine adaption without necessitating special adjustments.

[–] Eldest_Malk@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The article states that it’s smaller and cheaper. The reason it’s not widespread is that they just invented it.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It is interesting that someone just recently thought to use a fresnel lens with photovoltaics when they’ve existed for hundreds of years

[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago

It isn't that. They have been talking about Fresnel lenses on PV for decades. It's solving the heat issue and the size issue. A Fresnel lens gathers a large area of light and focuses it down, including focusing the heat. Normal PV cells cannot handle that amount of heat.

[–] DrunkenPirate@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This is exactely how most inventions are made: put together two things from different realms that might have a good fit.

Just wait a few years and they will find a way to use the light directly instead transferring it into electricity. There‘re some IC‘s that already use light instead of voltage to compute.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

costs too much

Various trade wars are changing those economics.