Efficient Solar Concentrators

Efficient Solar Concentrators


Program:
OPEN 2009
Award:
$968,943
Location:
Thousand Oaks, California
Status:
ALUMNI
Project Term:
10/01/2010 - 04/19/2013

Technology Description:

Teledyne is developing a liquid prism panel that tracks the position of the sun to help efficiently concentrate its light onto a solar cell to produce power. Typically, solar tracking devices have bulky and expensive mechanical moving parts that require a lot of power and are often unreliable. Teledyne's liquid prism panel has no bulky and heavy supporting parts—instead it relies on electrowetting. Electrowetting is a process where an electric field is applied to the liquid to control the angle at which it meets the sunlight above and to control the angle of the sunlight to the focusing lens—the more direct the angle to the focusing lens, the more efficiently the light can be concentrated to solar panels and converted into electricity. This allows the prism to be tuned like a radio to track the sun across the sky and steer sunlight into the solar cell without any moving mechanical parts. This process uses very little power and requires no expensive supporting hardware or moving parts, enabling efficient and quiet rooftop operation for integration into buildings.

Potential Impact:

If successful, Teledyne's liquid prism would facilitate rooftop integration of PV/CPV technologies by significantly reducing their cost and increasing their operational efficiency.

Security:

Cost-effective solar energy would increase U.S. renewable energy use and help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

Environment:

Replacing energy systems powered by fossil fuels would provide an immediate decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, of which electricity generation accounts for over 40%.

Economy:

Cost-effective renewable energy alternatives would reduce fuel prices and stabilize electricity rates for consumers. Integrating these renewable technologies directly into buildings will reduce stress on the electric grid.

Contact

ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. James Klausner
Project Contact:
Dr. Sungyong Park
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
spark@teledyne-si.com

Partners

University of Maryland

Related Projects


Release Date:
10/26/2009