3D Solar Panel Towers Are Not Only Innovative Solar System Designs, But Are exceptionally efficient for generating solar energy.
Researchers at MIT have shown that a 3D Solar Panel Tower generates up to 20 times more power than a regular 2D solar panel system.
They are easy to build and install for your home as well as for business use
As mentioned above, phenomenal results have been achieved since researchers at MIT started experimenting with 3D solar towers.
They’ve been testing 3D solar panel towers to see how to stabilise solar output and decrease the inefficiencies with regular 2D solar panels.
After designing and developing a 3D shaped solar panel tower, researchers at MIT realised a staggering 20 times greater power output than flat roof-mounted PV panels.
This is due to negating the inefficiency of traditional solar panels mounted flat on rooftops, which is fine only when the sun is directly overhead.
However, as the sun moves across the sky, the angle of the sun’s rays directed at the panel changes, making it less efficient at harnessing the sun’s power.
To get around this inefficiency, researchers at MIT found that arranging a collection of PV (photovoltaic) panels in a cube shape on a tower allows for far better harnessing of the sun’s rays.
Therefore, by optimally arranging the shape of the solar panel system, this new 3D shape will produce anything from double to 20 times more power output compared to regular solar panels on rooftops.
These findings were published in the journal of Energy & Environmental Science.
The most exciting thing about these findings is that you can use the MIT design, knowing that it’s proven to be way more efficient to build your own DIY 3D Solar Tower:
Watch This Video To See How It’s Done »
This comparison is based on a 3-bedroom house that has an annual electricity consumption 6000kWh.
The massive benefits of choosing a 3D solar panel tower over a regular roof mounted system are plain to see.
So now that we’re sold on this new solar panel system, the question is how to build a 3D solar tower to use at home.
Whilst the researchers at MIT did a significant amount of work to find the best way to do this, you need a detailed plan to build your own DIY 3D solar panel tower.
Above are two small versions of a 3D Solar Panel Tower that were tested by the MIT research team on a rooftop to measure their actual electrical output throughout the day.
However, despite the weather being cloudy for consecutive days, they were astonished to see that there was a massive improvement in power output over conventional flat 2D solar panels.
The benefit of the 3D solar tower is that it is able to capture sunlight at different angles throughout the day.
This means that it can maximise the harnessing of the sun’s rays all day and not just when the sun is at the perfect angle which is what 2D solar panels depend on.
And what’s more, you as this technology has been shown to work, you can use it to supplement your own power supply and save money on your electric bill by building your own.
The first important consideration to get exactly right is the angle that the panels need to be mounted at, to ensure maximum power output.
If the angles are not correct, a lot of the potential solar power generation will be lost due to the sun’s rays not hitting the panels at the ideal angle.
Furthermore, it’s more than a hit or miss calculation when you consider that you could be losing a significant amount of the power of the sun’s rays just because the angles and shapes of the cube aren’t perfect.
After many months of testing and experimenting, this is how Zack Bennett built his own 3D Solar Panel Tower cheaply from scrap material using the MIT research model.
Initially the MIT research team used a computer algorithm to explore an enormous variety of possible configurations.
From this they went on to develop analytic software to test any given configuration under a whole range of variables, such as latitudes, seasons and weather.
Then to confirm the settings produced by their software for a given condition, they built their own 3D solar panel towers with remarkable results as mentioned above.
Whilst a computer algorithm would help in optimising and simplifying the shapes of the 3D solar panel tower with minimal loss of energy, it seems that the difference between optimized shapes and a simple cube may only be around 10% to 15%
Therefore, you don’t need to be put off by not having access to computer algorithm to determine the optimal shape of your 3D solar panel tower cubes as the the difference is minimal and the benefit in power generation would still be impressive.
A 3D solar panel tower is essentially multiple standard solar panels stacked on top of each other to be more efficient at absorbing the suns solar energy.
Not only are these PV cells (solar panels) specially designed to absorb more sunlight efficiently, but they’re also positioned optimally so that they can absorb the suns rays even when it’s on the horizon.
The stacked panel design also maximises the number of photons that the 3D solar panel tower can absorb and therefore providing more electricity generation than the standard solar panel set up.
Furthermore, being stacked vertically makes them more space efficient to without needing acres of empty land as required by most solar farms.
We formulate, solve computationally and study experimentally the problem of collecting solar energy in three dimensions(1-5).
We demonstrate that absorbers and reflectors can be combined in the absence of sun tracking to build three-dimensional photovoltaic (3DPV) structures that can generate measured energy densities (energy per base area, kWh/m2) higher by a factor of 2-20 than stationary flat PV panels, versus an increase by a factor of 1.3-1.8 achieved with a flat panel using dual-axis sun tracking(6).
The increased energy density is countered by a higher solar cell area per generated energy for 3DPV compared to flat panel design (by a factor of 1.5-4 in our conditions), but accompanied by a vast range of improvements.
3DPV structures are steadier sources of solar energy generation at all latitudes: they can double the number of peak power generation hours and dramatically reduce the seasonal, latitude and weather variations of solar energy generation compared to a flat panel design.
Self-supporting 3D shapes can create new schemes for PV installation and the increased energy density can facilitate the use of cheaper thin film materials in area-limited applications.
Our findings suggest that harnessing solar energy in three dimensions can open new avenues towards Terawatt-scale generation.
Reference: Cornell University
The findings by MIT and Cornell University above, show that the effectiveness of solar energy generation in three dimensions is way more powerful than 2D solar panels.
Not only are 3D solar panel towers more space efficient, but they at the least they’ll double 2D PV panel output and in many cases produce 20 times more power.
Therefore, as a supplemental power generation solution, building your own 3D solar panel tower is within anyone’s grasp as this guy did with remarkable effect.
With this 3D Solar Panel System, you can generate your own clean, renewable energy at a fraction of the cost of roof-mounted solar panel systems
