Micropyramid lenses triple the light that hits solar panels

The solar panels would get more light from any angle on both sunny and overcast days with the help of the Stacks of teeny lenses.

Some solar systems track the big fireball across the sky because they like to face it formaximum light. Tracking tech costs a lot and can break.

These researchers were motivated to come up with an alternative. According to a peer-reviewed paper, the AGILE tech can boost the efficiency of static solar panels even in diffuse light. When the light was more slanted, the AGILE lenses were able to concentrate light into a 3x smaller area, and retain most of their power.

Concentrating light to squeeze more energy out of solar panels is nothing new, but the authors point out that concentrators such as fresnel lens and mirrors give only modest acceptance angles. The pyramidal design looks good in a video released with the paper.

A prototype of the AGILE lens is shown. The glass was bonded. B is made of aluminum. There is a solar cell that absorbs light. The image was created byNina Vaidya.

There are many ideas on the internet that could help us capture more energy from the sun. There are many things that are inspired by nature. There are features of AGILE that can be found in the eyes of fish and insects.

The prototypes were designed with the solar industry in mind and used readily available materials.

Abundance and affordable clean energy is a crucial part of addressing the urgent climate and sustainable challenges. There needs to be engineering solutions to make that a reality.