New compact concentrating solar panels “Heliotubes”
New compact concentrating solar panels “Heliotubes” are cheaper than conventional solar panels
Source: New Scientist, 9/12/2006, issue 2581 p.32
Duncan Graham-Rowe
A solar panel designed to cut the cost of harnessing the sun’s energy will go on the market next year. Its trick is to focus sunlight that strikes the entire panel onto far smaller slabs of the pricey material that turns light into electrical energy.
Called Heliotubes, the panels are designed to improve on today’s solar concentrators, which use sun-tracking dishes to collect sunlight. These dishes need space in which to move, so they occupy twice the area of flat panels that gather the same amount of light. This rules them out for sites like rooftops where space is limited. They also need an external power source to keep them pointed at the sun.
Each Heliotube panel is made up of 10 troughs, each 1 metre long and 12 centimetres wide, which use motorised lenses to focus light onto a strip of photovoltaic material only 12 millimetres wide.