Bringing Sunlight Inside -- Mechanical Engineers Create High-tech Solar Panels

Bringing Sunlight Inside -- Mechanical Engineers Create High-tech Solar Panels: "The new system uses high-tech solar-concentrator technology and advanced materials. The full-size prototype will be incorporated into a new building at The Center of Excellence in Syracuse, New York.
HOW IT WORKS: The key breakthrough is the miniaturized concentrator solar cell, which uses a lens with concentric grooves to focus collected light. Even though it is only the size of a postage stamp -- compared to the usual solar collector area that spans 4 x 4 feet -- the cell is much more efficient in collecting and reusing solar energy. The lens focuses incoming sunlight onto the solar cell. Microchannels at the base of the module transfer energy in the form of heat and light to wires contained inside. Each vertical stack of lenses rolls and tilts like a track blind, keeping the surface of the lenses faced to incoming sunlight as the sun changes position in the sky throughout the day. Incorporating these new cells into arrays could make solar energy an option that is competitive with other energy sources, reducing our dependency on fossil fuels."