13 Year Old Scientist Makes Solar Power Breakthrough

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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He can’t legally drive, drink or vote, but this 13 year old seventh grader can formulate a revolutionary solar collection theory and put it into practice. Aiden Dwyer has designed the solar tree which emulates the solar collection capabilities of an actual tree, (which is what trees do best) increasing the efficiency by up to 50% over flat panels.
 
It seems to me that if you had a flat array that followed the movement of the sun, it would be even more efficiant than this tree design.

With the tree design, there is always going to be panels that are not collecting an optimum amount of sunlight.

The tree design may collect more sunlight vs a regular flat array, but that is only because it has panels pointing in more than one direction.
 
...aaand how would that array be powered to follow the sun? We're trying to raise efficiency not reduce it.
 
tubular said:
Ummm, did anybody see this?

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...d=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com
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This basically sums it up..I commend the kid for thinking outside of the box and he clearly is more intelligent than the average 13 year old. Fantastic school science project it most certainly is. However that is where it stops and the rest becomes piss poor journalism (I know, surprise) and general hyperbole.

In summary Great science fair project, but hardly a break through.
 
He should have experimented with Thorium. He could have discovered how to power a car for its lifetime with a mere 8 grams!
 
enben980 said:
...aaand how would that array be powered to follow the sun? We're trying to raise efficiency not reduce it.
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A small step motor will use a very fraction of what the output of one panel is. If that panel's efficiency exceeds the motors power requirements, you gain efficiency and not lose it.

I think the more efficient method would be an auto-adjusting array that moves with the sun to maximize gain.

Or you could just do what Spain did and build a huge tower: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10228786-54.html

I think I saw this in an old episode of Chip and Dales growing up ..
 
It takes very very very little power to move the panels. Your logical reasoning is as flawed as this 13 year old's reasoning. At least he has the excuse of being a child for his ignorance.

An array of non-overlapping solar panels that have mechanized tilting parts to follow the sun will always be the most efficient way of capturing solar power, unless we learn to make efficient translucent/transparent solar cells that are stacked to capture as much of the electromagnetic spectrum as possible, assuming we can't manufacture a single panel to do it.

What your argument is saying is akin to saying "but power steering on cars will take away all the energy from the wheels!"

A non-powered, non-tilting, array of sub-optimally angled panels on a silly tree stand is ridiculous on its fact, ridiculous in theory, and ridiculous in practice.
 
I am not impressed. I've thought about this before, and dismissed it due to construction costs. Solar is already too expensive to be an economical source of energy. There is no reference here to how much more these will cost to put up. Sounds like the typical environmentalist progressivism that lacks a realistic implementation strategy.

They also do not really specify how the efficiency was determined. How many leaves on trees are typically shaded by other leaves? Like, nearly all of those on the backside are. For a given footprint you may be collecting more energy for a greater amount of daylight, but at what added cost? Total square footage would increase, but as panels overlapped each other the efficiency would drop. The "most efficient" solution depends on the application. You cannot put a tree on your roof. If it is tall, it will shade more around it, do you want the added shade?

Don't get me wrong, it is a good idea... for a 13 year old. Just don't blow him up with unrealistic expectations about what actually works in his subsidized "research" and not in the real world.

Oh, and that link to blogspot hits the nail on the head. But I guess if their target audience only reads at an eighth grade level they are just catering to their base. News is not really news anymore, it's entertainment.

I guess that we can complain to Al for spreading these misconceptions.
 
A lot of people want to believe in this article because it is apparently fun to think that a 13 year old can 'outsmart' so many thousands of scientists.

I don't know why scientists are kind of looked down upon these days...
 
verteron said:
I am not impressed. I've thought about this before, and dismissed it due to construction costs. Solar is already too expensive to be an economical source of energy.
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Actually it's not uneconomical. The problem is that the move from the cost of the solar panels to the cost of having some professional install them is what makes them bat shit expensive. Literally increasing the cost upwards of 2-3x with no "break even" point on labor. Learn how to install them yourself, you could save significant money if you shop around and wait. Stay addicted to others doing all your work for you, and you'll pay.


They also do not really specify how the efficiency was determined. How many leaves on trees are typically shaded by other leaves?
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Yeah, I'd like to see his little science fair project/write-up. But looking at the pictures he's shown, and what the secondary link showed, there's a huge hole in his reasoning. The downside is the kid has all these "news" organizations with their knee-jerk publish first or perish mentality and they're actually making him believe his dream is real.

One upside I could potentially see though, is by building a vertical tower you might get some advantage if there are space limitations, however no way would that be better than a vertical tower where all the panels rotate with the Sun.
 
Thats shitty compared to my array. All I did was buy 10 sets of decent panels instead of the ordinary 1shitty one. 2000% output increase and better efficiency!

Also...trees turn their leaves...
 
Nuc_E said:
He should have experimented with Thorium. He could have discovered how to power a car for its lifetime with a mere 8 grams!
Click to expand...

Shhhh! you can't talk about that, it works and it's safe, BUT you can't make nukes from the waste, so..... Shhhhh.

Wait till the year 3000, then maybe.
 
NahBrah said:
unless we learn to make efficient translucent/transparent solar cells that are stacked to capture as much of the electromagnetic spectrum as possible,
Click to expand...

I've read a bit of articles about this, and they always complain about lower efficiency. But their lower efficiency isn't THAT much lower. If you're covering THREE TIMES the bandwidth using three layers of cells and your efficiency is only 2/3rd that of a normal cell per layer, you're still getting twice the amount of current out of the whole thing. This lower efficiency per layer really shouldn't be a concern.

The real concern should be lowering costs on these multi-layer cells to approach that of standard solar cells.
 
um question why is the page that show how this is nonsence gone?
 
NeuReg said:
And yes I also don't know why scientists are looked down upon these days.
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Cause there's a group of scientists that came up with "global warming" and basically screwed over those that aren't just political pawns
 
stiltner said:
Cause there's a group of scientists that came up with "global warming" and basically screwed over those that aren't just political pawns
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That but mainly because people fear what they don't know and smarter people scare the shit out of them. We're in a world where the majority rules and the majority is stupid. So..



:(:p;)
 
J32P said:
That but mainly because people fear what they don't know and smarter people scare the shit out of them. We're in a world where the majority rules and the majority is stupid. So..



:(:p;)
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Couldn't have put it better myself. Certain politicians with the help of certain media have fabricated this idea of an "educated elite," who just want to brainwash their children and steal their money. That distrust is why articles like this keep popping up. People want so badly to see evidence of a corrupted "scientific establishment" that they'll latch onto whatever they can.
 
NeuReg said:
Aside from bad grammar and spelling, this article says it all.
As someone else stated earlier, I have very strong doubts that a 13 year old can outsmart thousands of scientists.
And yes I also don't know why scientists are looked down upon these days.
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hahah, I said that TOO, hahahhaa
 
I tried to reply to that debunking blog but it was not available. In short, the 'scientist' who wanted to debunk the story was a little pretentious.

For one scenario, a stationary array design: the flat panel will be most efficient at only one time in the day during a typical daylight cycle, where the stationary tree design will have some panels at close to optimal angle for almost the entire daylight cycle, so average power over the course of a day may indeed be higher with the tree design than a flat panel array. The tree array advantage will only go away if you engineer in sun tracking array positioning for the flat panel, but that adds a lot of complexity to the mechanical design.

Stupid scientist...always want to be right and ignore the real benefits of the design.
 
To me this seems workable if you can work out that it has to synthsize the heat and be sensitive enough to do that.
 
BBA said:
I tried to reply to that debunking blog but it was not available. In short, the 'scientist' who wanted to debunk the story was a little pretentious.

For one scenario, a stationary array design: the flat panel will be most efficient at only one time in the day during a typical daylight cycle, where the stationary tree design will have some panels at close to optimal angle for almost the entire daylight cycle, so average power over the course of a day may indeed be higher with the tree design than a flat panel array. The tree array advantage will only go away if you engineer in sun tracking array positioning for the flat panel, but that adds a lot of complexity to the mechanical design.

Stupid scientist...always want to be right and ignore the real benefits of the design.
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yea... doesnt matter because the guy was still right ... its pretty mathematically proven that any thing other the optimum angle isnt as good
and the kids data was junk voltage is not power
with the cells in series your limited to the amperage of the lowest cell
 
I'm not an engineer or anything but does a solar grid have to flat? Can it be designed to be a dome or hemispherical shape? That way, no matter where the sun is in the sky, it will always catch light.

Or, mirrors can be set up in such a way that catch the sun at different points throughout the day and reflect the light back towards the grid. This way, there is no need to have to generate or use additionaly energy for a motor. I'm not sure what the effect is of a reflected beam of light, though (if it loses "power" or intensity)
 
Infina said:
I'm not an engineer or anything but does a solar grid have to flat? Can it be designed to be a dome or hemispherical shape? That way, no matter where the sun is in the sky, it will always catch light.

Or, mirrors can be set up in such a way that catch the sun at different points throughout the day and reflect the light back towards the grid. This way, there is no need to have to generate or use additionaly energy for a motor. I'm not sure what the effect is of a reflected beam of light, though (if it loses "power" or intensity)
Click to expand...

Nothing has to be anything. I will tell you, that working in the PV industry...they are thinking of it all. Problem is nearly all is horrible to produce with reasonable margins.
 
BBA said:
I tried to reply to that debunking blog but it was not available. In short, the 'scientist' who wanted to debunk the story was a little pretentious.

For one scenario, a stationary array design: the flat panel will be most efficient at only one time in the day during a typical daylight cycle, where the stationary tree design will have some panels at close to optimal angle for almost the entire daylight cycle, so average power over the course of a day may indeed be higher with the tree design than a flat panel array. The tree array advantage will only go away if you engineer in sun tracking array positioning for the flat panel, but that adds a lot of complexity to the mechanical design.

Stupid scientist...always want to be right and ignore the real benefits of the design.
Click to expand...
well the flat array would be most efficient at one time during the day however if aligned correctly you'll get good production for quite a few hours anyways.

While you're correct the "optimal" positioning will be available more in the tree array, but just for a single panel that happens to be facing the sun, and that provides zero benefit, and in fact hampers you. Reasoning for this is two fold, because if you have optimal facing during the day for one or more panels, that means you'll have really horrible facing other parts of the day (i.e. the panel that's facing the morning sun only), also unless you're using microinverters to convert each panel's electricity rather than wire in series, those lower producing panels will bring down the efficiency of the entire array, not just themselves.

Even with microinverters, each panel will have a limited window where you produce peak power, why not have all of them pointed at the optimal position to maximize that peak power time, that being directly south, so the Sun goes through the least amount of atmosphere, when it is directly over head?
 
Trepidati0n said:
Nothing has to be anything. I will tell you, that working in the PV industry...they are thinking of it all. Problem is nearly all is horrible to produce with reasonable margins.
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when I was in grad school, there was one such company on the radar that made little half dome nubs on flexible sheets, not sure what happened to that company though, downside is they have to spaced a bit apart so no shadowing occurs.

Also Sun Power I believe does something similar at a microscopic layer, so that reflections are brought further into the array..
 
Like that 10 year old "hacker" that was making press last week, recognition is fine, but hardly any revolutions happening here.
 
stiltner said:
Cause there's a group of scientists that came up with "global warming" and basically screwed over those that aren't just political pawns
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Just like those nasty scientists who came up with "cancer", right? It's all a political game to screw over smokers!

How does it politically HELP anyone that there is climate change? Climate change is not a political issue to anyone except those that are in the industry that is making climate change worse.

Scientists support the claim that climate change exists. Politicians oppose it. When it comes to science, I think I'll trust the scientists, not the politicians.
 
The kid does deserve some credit. but yeah, not for a breakthrough, but for good engineering.

As for rotating panels, anything mechanical is prone to failure, sure you have different mean times between failures, but it is the inherent weakness. If you have a static tree that just works, you are better off.
 
Elios said:
yea... doesnt matter because the guy was still right ... its pretty mathematically proven that any thing other the optimum angle isnt as good
and the kids data was junk voltage is not power
with the cells in series your limited to the amperage of the lowest cell
Click to expand...

I was also going to add the 'scientist' who blogged was also incorrect in his rebuttable, his explanation between photons and electrons and voltage is conceptually wrong.

Now, to say what you said, 'anything other than optimum' could mean a lot of things, as a good percentage of the panels will be closer to optimum for longer periods of the day in a tree configuration than in a fixed flat panel configuration, as throughout the day, multiple panels will be and multiple panels will not be.

As for current production with cells in series, a panel with little to no light will still pass the same current as the other panels, it will just do such at a reduced voltage and would not increase power to a great extent (same as putting a blanket over a few panel in a series array while the others are in sun...the series array in total still produces power). Even if a non-lighted panel became a resistance to where the series current was even a concern, each panel could be wired in parallel for a low voltage high current array, or even in series parallel. This means the concern is not valid.

To be able to truly measure the usefulness of this arrangement, you would have to build it, test its time weighted average power output during the light cycle of a days time, then compare the stationary arrays time weighted average power over the same time period. I am sure the tree array will produce less peak power but it will produce more power over a days time than a 'peak daylight usefullness only' flat panel array.

Give the kid some credit, he may just bust your theory bubble.
 
BBA said:
To be able to truly measure the usefulness of this arrangement, you would have to build it, test its time weighted average power output during the light cycle of a days time, then compare the stationary arrays time weighted average power over the same time period. I am sure the tree array will produce less peak power but it will produce more power over a days time than a 'peak daylight usefullness only' flat panel array.
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In the PV community though, "panel efficiency" isn't the problem. Solar panels are already damn efficient, but they cost money. The A#1 issue with PV acceptance is its cost. So to be able to "truly measure the usefulness," you need to consider the cost to build this type of array.

OT: We need more nuclear power!
 
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