Hot Solar Cells are the Cool Way to Water and Power

I'm not quite sure why I'm commenting ;-)

The article is at least a little unclear to me--I'm pretty sure they aren't running salt /sea water through the micro-channels, but if would be interesting if they could do that without clogging the micro channels.

(Some of the wording, talking about the "old way" (not their words) being to heat water to boil water for desalinization is confusing--iiuc, they are still doing that, but getting part of the heat by running (presumably very clean) water through the microchannels.

I understood it mean using a heat exchanger between micro-channel 'pure water' and the distilling operation.

Though I'm still fairly confused why they are focusing, so still loosing efficiency through greater heat rise than converting directly on the 'acceptance area' of the 'lens'.

Re: I understood it mean using a heat exchanger between micro-channel 'pure water' and the distilling operation.

Thanks! Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what they meant, but the wording left me uncertain.

Re: Though I'm still fairly confused why they are focusing, so still loosing efficiency through greater heat rise than converting directly on the 'acceptance area' of the 'lens'.

I think that even though they lose efficiency in the conversion, they get more light on the solar cell, thus getting, overall, more electricity per solar cell, even though it is less efficient than the same solar cell with less heat.

Then, by cooling it, they improve the efficiency (but I'm not sure they get it back to the same efficiency that they would get for the solar cell with out the focused sunlight.

So, I think they're getting (or trying to get) what you might call more economic efficiency. More electricity per solar cell, even though less efficient. (And, of course, they plan to sell these solar cells at a premium, thus I'm not sure when/if they'll really be more economically efficient.

I guess I should have left out the word economic. They're looking for more electricity per solar cell, even at the cost of solar/electric efficiency.

Would that they comprehend the delicious irony of your First Law circles.

Excellent job!

Thanks! (I think.)

I'm not sure I was trying to be ironic. ;-) I hope I was clear:

The focusing of the light on the cells can generate (has the potential to generate) more electricity per cell.

The extra heat due to that focusing makes the conversion less efficient (although they might still (or might not) generate more electricity per cell).

The micro-channel cooling is an attempt to regain that lost efficiency.

Given the things work best around -3⁰C, it just might seem a little 'ironic'.

But who am I to say?

I wonder how big a micro channel is?

probably a case of looking for application to fit the technology

any solution is going to be a compromise & will necessarily balance production costs with value added

like Vlad says, hard to do real cooling & have it do anything but cost money

I wonder what the temp vs efficiency graph looks like?

do you think the channels still produce?

or can some of the other surface optimization technologies also be applied?

what about cooling thin film from behind?