this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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Scientists make game-changing breakthrough that could slash costs of solar panels: 'Has the potential to contribute to the energy transition' (www.thecooldown.com)
submitted 6 days ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world
126 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/24690127

Solar energy experts in Germany are putting sun-catching cells under the magnifying glass with astounding results, according to multiple reports.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems team is perfecting the use of lenses to concentrate sunlight onto solar panels, reducing size and costs while increasing performance, Interesting Engineering and PV Magazine reported.

The "technology has the potential to contribute to the energy transition, facilitating the shift toward more sustainable and renewable energy sources by combining minimal carbon footprint and energy demand with low levelized cost of electricity," the researchers wrote in a study published by the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics.

The sun-catcher is called a micro-concentrating photovoltaic, or CPV, cell. The lens makes it different from standard solar panels that convert sunlight to energy with average efficiency rates around 20%, per MarketWatch. Fraunhofer's improved CPV cell has an astounding 36% rate in ideal conditions and is made with lower-cost parts. It cuts semiconductor materials "by a factor of 1,300 and reduces module areas by 30% compared to current state-of-the-art CPV systems," per IE.

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[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 28 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (10 children)

I'm not sure what to think about the Fraunhofer institute in general. They have made some nice discoveries/inventions in the past, such as audio compression algorithms and such. That is why i hyped them for a bit.

But they really disappointed me with their writings on solar panels in the past few years.

They said that the efficiency of solar panels today is too low to deploy them widely in practice, which is simply not true. They tried pushing Perovskite solar cells for no reason.

I'm not sure what to think about this article's idea. On one hand, adding lenses to solar parks makes them significantly more complicated and therefore expensive to build. Also, if the parks have complicated physical forms, they're more susceptible to wind, and that could damage them.

On the other hand, yes, adding lenses means you need fewer actual solar panels for the same amount of energy harvested.

I'll therefore put it in the category of inconclusive inventions, together with the idea of adding a motor to the solar panels so they can track the sun. That would also make the solar panels more efficient, but also more complicated and more prone to mechanical failure.

[–] r_deckard@lemmy.world 13 points 6 days ago (4 children)

I'd like to know what they're going to do about the heating issue. Concentrating solar radiation carries with it an increased heat load. And heat reduces solar PV efficiency. I'm already losing about 30% in summer when the panels heat up.

[–] Quexotic@infosec.pub 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This was my first question too! I thought heat makes them wear out faster.

[–] themurphy@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It does. Also seems weird nobody thought of a magnifying glass before.

But its also the beauty in science. Now somebody else thought about it, and they might work harder to fix the next problem: Heat.

If that gets better now, solar panels will increase in output even more. There are so many technologies going into one product, and each field have its own experts.

I'm excited.

[–] Honytawk@feddit.nl 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They probably did, but like they said, the heating is probably the issue.

I can see them adding a cooling element. Maybe even water cooling.

[–] themurphy@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago

If they could implement water cooling, and then use the heated water in a central heating station for house warming, it would be genius.

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