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IBM increases the power of the sun

by on26 September 2014



Because you can never have too much tan

Biggish Blue boffins have come up with a way of increasing the sun's radiation by 2,000 times while also producing fresh water and air conditioning. IBM and Switzerland-based Airlight Energy today announced a new parabolic dish uses a dense array of water-cooled solar chips that can convert 80 per cent of the sun's radiation into useful energy.

Dubbed the “Concentrator PhotoVoltaics (CPV) system the gear which looks like a 33-foot-high sunflower, can generate 12 kilowatts of electrical power and 20 kilowatts of heat on a sunny day — enough to power several average homes. Bruno Michel, the project's lead scientists at IBM Research in Switzerland did not say what it would do in England and Ireland where sun is something that other countries have.

The mirrors concentrate the sun on the chips to produce electricity. Normally, the chips would ignite, since they reach temperatures of 1,500 degrees Celsius. IBM scientists are taking a page from the supercomputer playbook to keep them at a relatively cool 105 degrees with a water radiator system.

The dense array of multi-junction photovoltaic (PV) chips, mirrors and the electrical receiver are encased in a large inflated transparent plastic enclosure to protect the system from rain or hail.

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