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From: chi9@quads.uchicago.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: solar cells
Message-ID: <1991Jan5.011526.15425@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 5 Jan 91 01:15:26 GMT
References: <1991Jan3.072059.20842@loop.uucp> <11515@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1991Jan4.173128.26484@cs.rochester.edu>
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In article <1991Jan4.173128.26484@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu
(Paul Dietz) writes:
>In fact, if sophisticated, expensive single crystal Si, GaAs or high
>performance tandem cells are ever used on earth on a large scale, they
>will be used with lens/mirror concentrators at concentration ratios of
>100 or greater.  This only works in areas with lots of direct sunlight,
>like the southwest, but that's the sunniest part of the country anyway.

	Uh -- won't the resulting overheating kill the solar cells, or at
least inactivate them for the duration of exposure to concentrated direct
sunlight?  My information on this may be out of date, but I thought that even
a very hot day without concentration of sunlight was enough to lower the
efficiency of photovoltaic cells.  Also, using concentrators takes away most
of the advantages that solar cells have in not absolutely requiring unclouded
sunlight in order to produce a significant amount of electrical energy.

--
|   Lucius Chiaraviglio    |    Internet:  chi9@midway.uchicago.edu