Now a team of mit researchers has come up with a very different approach.
Mit solar energy solar panel led.
Mit researchers just unveiled a new three dimensional solar array that can produce up to 20 times more energy per square foot than traditional flat arrays and it s potentially more efficient than.
Because energy supply facilities typically last several decades technologies in these classes will dominate solar.
What s more this complete system on a chip can power devices and charge a battery connected to the devices at the same time.
The team had good long term data on both solar panel output and solar insolation gathered at the same time by monitoring stations set up adjacent to the solar installations.
Joel jean phd 17 spent two years working on the future of solar energy a report published by the mit energy initiative mitei in 2015 today he is striving to create that future as ceo of swift solar a startup that is developing lightweight solar panels based on perovskite semiconductors.
Read full story.
The researchers were able to develop.
However in a new study in energy and environmental science a team of mit researchers has taken a different approach by changing the shape of the solar panels.
Efficient led s used for home lighting are around 6 efficient.
An efficient solar panel is around 15 efficient.
They saw that during the 18 day long haze event the performance of some types of solar panels decreased while others stayed the same or increased slightly.
Building cubes or towers that extend the solar cells upward in three dimensional configurations.
Amazingly the results from the structures they ve tested show power output ranging from double to more than 20 times that of fixed flat panels with the same base area.
Using the same logic a team of mit researchers have stacked a bunch of photovoltaic solar cells together to produce up to 20 times the power output of conventional solar power installations.
An ultra low power circuit developed by mit engineers is capable of harvesting more than 80 of the solar energy it absorbs.