UK renewables company Naked Energy has invented Virtu, a hybrid solar panel that simultaneously heats water and generates electricity.
The technology, developed by Naked Energy’s chief engineer Richard Boyle, integrates an electricity-generating photovoltaic cell into a hot-water-generating solar thermal panel. The solar thermal panels are placed into vacuum tubes and are unaffected by ambient temperature.
Through combining the two technologies, Boyle was able to address one of the fundamental problems facing photovoltaic cells.
‘When photovoltaic panels get hot they become less efficient. For every 1º rise in temperature [from 25°C], you lose half a percentage point of efficiency,’ said Simmons. ‘A very efficient photovoltaic panel has a maximum efficiency of approximately 18 per cent. But by the time you get up to 65°C, which is quite a normal temperature on the face of a solar panel, you’re down to something like four per cent efficiency.’
Heat is transferred away from the photovoltaic cells with a patented thermosyphon technology that harvests the unwanted heat from the photovoltaic cell to heat up water.
As a result of taking the heat away and cooling down the photovoltaic cell, it is possible to generate more electricity than conventional photovoltaic cells.
Naked Energy has been working closely with Prof Peter Childs, an expert in heat transfer from Imperial College London, to further improve the efficiency of the solar panels.
Childs recently found that Naked Energy’s photovoltaic cells generate 40–45 per cent more energy as a result of the heat transfer method.
– source theengineer.co.uk, nakedenergy.co.uk
I was worried about the darker solar panels heating up earth by absorbing more heat from sun instead of reflecting it. Now we have solution. Great…