Photon Energy System - Interesting Energy Gathering Spheres

[bogieb]

Ran across this article yesterday. There is also a short video embedded. Interesting concept that can "reuse" household lighting (my words/interpretation, not theirs) as well as collect solar energy. Supposed to be way more efficient than solar panels too.

It is still in the proof of concept phase (up to Gen 3 so far) and I see that the LED lighting they demonstrate with in the video is much closer to the spheres than a ceiling light would be, but they have to start somewhere.

People way more knowledgeable than me (pretty much everyone here - LOL), can probably understand the challenges and explain why it may, or may not, be a good up-and-coming tech.

 

[stoveliker]

I have strong doubts. If PV panels are 20% efficient, that means they convert 20% of the incoming light energy to electricity.

How can you be more than 5 times as efficient as that?

There are ways to get beyond the Shockley-Queisser limit based on tricks like double junctions etc. but tens of times as efficient runs into fundamental issues.

Shockley–Queisser limit - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Don't invest.your money here, I'd say.

 

[peakbagger]

My "hype-o-meter" was ringing along with my BS detector. I have commented before that the source, The Cool Down, is questionable at best. They just scrape the web for PR announcements, put click bait titles on them and try to make them look like news.

 

[stoveliker]

Yes. Here too (bs alarm).
But I thought reasoning would go better than saying BS only...

Another one is that the spheres reflect a majority of the light... (Rather than absorb and use; there's a reason PV panels are darkish....)

 

[peakbagger]

Big claims require extraordinary evidence.

Sure there are Black Swan events out there on occasion but for every Black Swan, there are numerous claims that never meet that threshold. Solar insolation is usually around 1000 watts a meter at best usually less. Every solar panel manufacturer has a calibrated light source to test and certify their panels. Show me the numbers from a rack of these devices under a standard test rig by a third party and I will be less of a skeptic.

 

[begreen]

Solmet sent out this press release to all the major wire services including financial institutions. They say they will have an initial product out by fall. Until then it's vaporware with the results TBD.