13-Year-Old Boy Improves Solar Panel Efficiency 50%

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The kid measured the output voltage "open circuit", not under any sort of load.
Solar cells make their best power when operated at the "knee of the curve" between voltage and current. This kid based everything on voltage, no current.
WRONG...and WRONG again.
Amazing how many people got suckered in to this crap...
 

K-zon

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Solar panel ideas are nice but even finding a place where the smaller ones are for sale and cheap is anyones guess. Given the ideas can keep in those areas long enough to say as well.

Till then though, least someone has finally taken an idea and made something of it for what it could be made of. By the time he's 30 Should be on the path of something bigger then what is used for his current idea now. 17yrs is alot to work with. Almost going to College or a University 2 times over.

Think say building a solar tree though wouldn't require it.

With a patent on the idea though, either going or not, probably won't be an issue. Hopefully everyone can get a chanec to hear and read about what he has done.
 
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hahaha, this is so funny. "Let's increase the number of solar panels per square meter and that will increase their efficiency". Nice work kid!

Why not just use a gigantic cone with a slight angel with the solar panels on the inside and a dome at the top to channel all the sunlight into the cone and onto the solar panels? Besides that fact it might get so hot that the whole thing will burst into flames, I figure it would definitely increase the efficiency by at least 232.542%
 

sithtis

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maybe he was talking about is "tree panel" versus a stationary solar panel... on a 12-14 hours or on a year cycle... yeah maybe the tree style panel is able to be 50% more efficient
 

scrumworks

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[citation][nom]spectrewind[/nom]Here goes THG again....Publishing falsely documented news without verifying accuracy again. This is why the science bodies have peer-review to verify, people.Poor and unacceptable journalism.But hey, if it's on the Internet.. it must be true! Right THG?[/citation]

Just like the rest of Tom's. Poor, out-of-date and biased journalism. This site used to be good, ten years ago...
 

K-zon

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[citation][nom]marshcorps[/nom]hahaha, this is so funny. "Let's increase the number of solar panels per square meter and that will increase their efficiency". Nice work kid!Why not just use a gigantic cone with a slight angel with the solar panels on the inside and a dome at the top to channel all the sunlight into the cone and onto the solar panels? Besides that fact it might get so hot that the whole thing will burst into flames, I figure it would definitely increase the efficiency by at least 232.542%[/citation]

On ideas of say articles and news, we are sort this somewhere.

Otherwise for ideas though probably as variant as any others, just gotta deal with curved surfaces. Which probably has a 3-1 chance to break in the process. Least even on the tree idea at times saves some room for even those kinda "faults" .

Flat panels would be nice cause making them probably couldn't be too bad, but they were made and able to move afterwards.

So again even though probably in the right direction of thoughts at times, does present its own issues. Otherwise for ideas of say cones would be limited to size and angles of lights for a straight panel and should of went with more a "pyramid" type design. Cause here at least within the design would be say little to work with on changes within ideas of loses or gains.

Cones might have to make the panel smaller to fit all, which is probably subjective and perspective of course. But on the idea of channeling of light though, probably wouldn't be needed.

But of it though again on ideas of a tree to say once fell not all is in as much issue as others. Of those though to say if so would incline probably other issues though to say.

But probably does still get some say "perks" in the idea though. In terms of say size if equally placed to something on a roof, some panels might not be as high up as what a flat panel would be or even curved.

Then of it some panels aren't in use as much as others, even for say damaged ones for the idea and replacement of positions may provide some compensation. Probably as ot placed for it though as well, given you are moving a better panel for the one that is not. But of it though is idea of use maybe of ones that were not getting as much as they were.

Also of it would probably incline many ideas of able to "attach" panels within certains weights and angles. Say all attachments should be the same, but maybe not.

Least with the Cone idea probably not as placed for such an issue if present as much. But still, something to think of though. Otherwise left to own thoughts to say.

Own thoughts are probbaly harder to find then not but at least of them is something to think of, given many ideas usually require some though, others no of course, unless of the idea of itself.

Till then are ideas though for what could or couldn't be done. Otherwise they are that without saying so. Which would be many things without ways of speak, but thats on the ideas of change within themselves.

But of it though Solar Panels are interesting ideas though, and they do seem to come and go for what they are. For ideas of space in terms of use there is probably some useful ideas of them use but still many within ideas of reasonable more even with more has its issue.

So, we might hear of a few more ideas and find some interest in what they are for what they maybe when that happens but till then, we got a idea of Solar Trees rather once or again.

If anything though of at least again is some innovation against what might not be seen as innovation as much of what it might be though at least.

But if anything with it ideas will be placed within what might be considered reasonable means. And the affordability of it as well.

Bt least the most in this one place of article is probably that its own collection of ideas for what one might be of ideas or an idea.

Probably one of the most or least depending upon some ideas but of it should it say any one idea is better then another is anyones guess to say as well.

Theres yestarday, today, and tomorrow, but whats probably going on now is nice, rather it conficts with today or not. And now being placed just when someone reads any of the articles and maybe comments. Or posting them.

Until then, water still doesn't really float as much as it would sound.
 

cats_Paw

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Assuming its not a hoax or something like that... WTF does a 13 year old do comparing trees to the fibonacci spiral?! Omg that so crazy... He could be some sort of a genious.
Rocks thou, 50%... thats huge.
 

fixxxer113

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Ok, first of all better solar panel efficiency and better solar panel positioning for better yield are two entirely different things...

Second, this idea is nothing new. I've been shown computer models of tree setups years ago by an engineer friend of mine. And they were a lot more complex than that, with hundreds of little leaves. As for optimizing yield, that was done by computers with vastly complex optimization algorithms so i doubt this kid can do better. He got the patent probably cuz noone else decided to use the fibonacci sequence (or maybe they already know it's not the best setup?...).

This kid should definitely be congratulated for being intelligent and interested in science and consider a career as an angineer, but that's not front page news.

He should keep the patent thoug... Who knows, maybe in 10-15 years time, when some big corporation makes billions off a similar design, he could sue their pants off... :)

P.S.: K-Zon, please stop posting using automatic translation... it's not translated to english, it's translated to gibberish. DUDE, NO ONE UNDERSTANDS WHAT THE HELL YOU'RE SAYING!!
 

DSpider

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| think Tom's may have a thing for children... Last week or so there was that 7 year old who supposedly "started" his own iOS company, the week before that there was a little girl who supposedly "hacked" some bullshit games (by changing the system clock) and now this?
 

jamesedgeuk2000

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[citation][nom]demonhorde665[/nom]i dont support current nuclear technology , nuclear fission is dnagerous , expensive , and generally a bad ideal in many ares (don't have to look further than japan for an example).[/citation]


Actually Japan is a great example of how safe nuclear has become, the Fukushima incident was more than 10x worse than Chernobyl however the damage caused by it was more than 50x less, this is because Chernobly was based on technology from the 1950's whereas Fukushima ' was from the 1960's, by contrast accidents such of these are not just unlikely they are impossible at a modern nuclear power station, however thats the kind of thing you don't hear about from the likes of green peace.

They are about to start building a new plant down the road and were looking forward to it, it will mean new jobs and will provide more power than every single wind turbine in the country (UK) combined, with lower maintenance costs to boot.
 

morbane

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Demonhorde665 you might want to learn about what your going to say before saying it.

First Cold Fussion itself is a contradiction of terms. It is not out of our technological grasp because it is impossible to happen.

In order for 2 particles to fuse together they need a tremendous amount of energy because like particles actually repell each other. The only way to fuse them is to give them so much kinetic energy (heat) and or pressure that it overcomes their repulsivness and that is an amount many orders of magnitude larger then what is available at or near room temperature (which is was cold fussion would be).

Even our sun at the millions of degrees that it is, is still not hot enough to fuse hydrogen into helium but is hot enough to get the particles just close enough that fussion can happen via quantum tunneling. There is no chance of anything fusing near room temperature nor is there any chance of them getting close enough to fuse via quantum tunneling.

2nd there is no "danger of an atomic blast if it destabilizes" it is physically impossible for a nuclear power plant to blow up.

1 it simply doesn't have the material required for that to happen. Atomic bombs use enriched material over 90% while power plants use material enriched about 5%.

2 nor do they provide the kind of mechanisms required for supercritcal mass to be reached (its like a gun without a firing pin.)

A nuclear power plant blowing up in an atomic explosion would be like a bag of flour sitting there by itself just happening to blow up like detonated demolition explosives, neither have the material nor the mechanisms required for it to happen.
 

morbane

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Guess I better jump in before you say Chernobyl as you probably wouldn't of bothered researching that either to know that it wasn't an atomic blast even though it did literally blow up.

When the reactor failed it caused steam explosions which of course sent radioactive fallout across the land which is not an atomic blast.

Chernobyl was also built in the 1950's and the reactor was not housed in any kind of containment vessel. Since the 1960's (japans plant is an example) they are designed very differently and the reactors are housed in containment vessels so that if they do happen to fail it is contained and you do not get an explosion like what happened with Chernobyl (which again was still nothing like an atomic blast).
 
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you guys who are condemning this kid for bad math and such aren't showing how intelligent you are. You're degrading a 13 yr olds experiment. Its amazing that any 13 yr old is comprehending how a tree uses energy and thinking how it can be capitalized. That's more then the average kid his age is bothering to do these days. Its great that he's looking at ways to make things better. That will only grow as his knowledge base increases. He's taking some neat first steps into being a great addition to our society.
 
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Tom's, this kids experiment has been proven totally wrong. Please remove or correct the article and stop spreading this misinformation. This is not news.
 

ojas

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found out about the Fibonacci thing when i was a year older than this guy...all living things have some characteristics that match the sequence...like most (if not all) flowers have 'n' number of petals, where n belongs to the set of all Fibonacci numbers. An octopus has 8 tentacles, starfish usually have 5 or 8 arms, etc.

When i read the headline i thought this lad actually improved the efficiency of the solar panel itself.
 
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