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A comment on Japanese company develops a solar cell with record-breaking efficiency. Parent comment

Re:Japanese company develops a solar cell with record-breaki... by jacquesm on Thursday March 23, 2017 @11:08AM (#13940369)
I've done a lot of experimenting with that. Here are some of the (surprising!) results:

  - you only need one motor to aim a whole array of mirrors
    if you're willing to make some exotic gears

  - the lifespan of the cells will shorten measurably

  - you will need to cool the cells if you don't want them
    to die very quickly

  - there will be a serious fire risk
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Re:Japanese company develops a solar cell with record-breaki... by ballenf on Thursday March 23, 2017 @12:23PM (#13941225)
Are there cells designed for higher intensity than others -- ones that can handle the extra light and maintain efficiency?
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Re:Japanese company develops a solar cell with record-breaki... by jacquesm on Thursday March 23, 2017 @02:28PM (#13942636)
Yes, but they're not cheap, in fact they are so expensive that it will be cheaper to cover the mirrors with cheaper cells directly...

At this point in time there are no cheap and easy solutions in sight to make the next 2 to 5% gain in efficiency in a cost effective manner.

But given enough time and effort I'm sure that that will happen, I expect the final cut-off to be somewhere around 25% net efficiency (solar incidence to electricity out of the system) for smaller installations and maybe up to 30% for much larger installations.

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Re:Japanese company develops a solar cell with record-breaki... by philipkglass on Thursday March 23, 2017 @02:28PM (#13942623)
Yes, there are different cell and cooling designs for low concentrating PV and high concentrating PV (LCPV, HCPV). But the price of non-concentrating PV systems has, so far, fallen fast enough to prevent either LCPV or HCPV from taking even 1% of the PV market. Soitec, Amonix, Suncore, and Sunfocus all failed to drum up enough CPV business to stay solvent.
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