Pink Fire Pointer December 2005

The Benefits

Now the question comes, what are the benefits of generating energy through a off-shore Solar-Rig (see end of page if you don't what it is); well, here are some

i) optimum utilization of space as it’ll not lead to deforestation on land,

ii) oil rig platform technology is very much developed and it’ll help in setting up Solar Rigs easily

iii) old & dried up oil rigs can be used as platform for Solar Rigs and,

iv) such high temperature & power system can be used for hydrogen generation which is fuel of the future.

Any comments?

Energy Collector Design

click for larger image

I've thought of a design for the Energy Collector of my project, 'off-shore solar' (As I'll call it now). Now first, what's an energy collector? Energy Collector is a device which is placed at the focal point of the Concentrator. Sun light can be as intense as around 3000 Suns at this point and temperatures in excess of 5000K



Now, think how wonderful it will be if we can take out useful energy from a solar cell without frying it in this intense heat. So, my design of the collector is basically based on this idea. We know that a silicon solar cell can convert only high frequency light into electricity i.e. blue to violet part of the spectrum. Rest of the energy essentially goes waste as heat in solar cells.

But, this is going to change Now!

If we can separate the intense beam of Sunlight into a spectrum like this, then we can safely place a solar cell in the Green to Blue portion of the spectrum and heat collectors can be placed in the Yellow to Red portion.
The results we can obtain using this technique seem to be amazing as the solar cell will work at maximum efficiency with minimal heating and we're also utilizing the heat of the sunlight.


Now the question is how we're going to split the sunlight into parts?

Maybe we can pass the intense beam through a prism or will diffraction work? (I'm not sure about this) or we can maybe... ah... err.... Ya, maybe we can use the way nature makes it (in a rainbow). If you're a researcher or professor or student or anybody knowing about this reading then can you please suggest me somethin..? Thanks very much!!


Suggestions & Comments are invited, thank you for reading.