The Next Big Things in Solar Power Technology
When you look at the current state of the solar energy market, you notice without effort that these gadgets evolve constantly, getting more powerful and smaller all the time. The latest portable solar chargers can be used to give a laptop around one fourth of the power it needs.
One example is a charger made by Powertraveller, called Solargorilla, which is able to store electricity at a good level even when the clouds are up. Basically, in a smaller device, we can see a larger part of the sunlight energy being converted.
Starting with an efficiency of 15%, they managed to get it up to 20%, and in less than 2 years it will go up to 22%. Right now, these solar chargers can be used only for smaller gadgets, like music players or phones.
According to BBC.co.uk, for their future plans, Powertraveller says that they are going to launch a folding array with four panels that is portable, which can be used both to charge batteries and run a laptop. This gadget will apparently be launched in 2010.
Panel power
In the last few years, the solar energy industry saw an increase in the production of small scale devices, used mainly by people for their own use, to power their homes. While the increase was small in the past, the year 2008 saw a much larger increase, of 100%.
In the past, houses took sun power with the help of regular solar panels, but lately there are new devices on the market, which can change the way solar power is produced.
They are sole power tiles, from SRS Energy, which have a thin and flexible film of photovoltaic cells on them. The color of these tiles is blue, as it will maximize the sunlight that is produced. These sole power tiles will be launched in the beginning of 2010.
In the past, solar cells managed to convert only a sixth of the energy they received from the sun. With the latest materials, solar panels are getting much more efficient, with the percentage of efficiency going up to 23%, by using regular materials.
As for the materials that are in labs right now, their efficiency goes up to 30% or even more.
