Dual purpose water-electric solar panels
This little lamp appeared in my head: when you have a limited area (such as roofs) to mount solar panels on, wouldn’t it be great to have a dual-purpose light/heat collector solar panel? The upmost surface would be the photo-voltaic cells, and underneath you’d have the water channels for the primary water circuit. This wouldn’t hurt the efficiency of the photo-voltaic part, and a lot of the re-emited infrared “waste” energy could be absorved through the water for water heating and climatization, I’m sure the overall efficiency would be worth it.
I haven’t been able to find anything similar online, has anyone ever heard of it? (see update below) With the advancement of the production techniques and the subsequent lower costs, you could have whole houses/buildings covered in modular dual-purpose tiles like these.
Update (May 18th, 2008):
Reader Andreas Mühlmann has pointed out there’s already a product like I proposed, although there are some problems with the concept.
I just seen on this weeks tv show “revovation nation” on planet green, on it they show just what you are talking about, a regular solar panel facing the sun and a water hot water system on the back.
The solar panel gets very hot while the sun is busy making electricity and that heat lowers the effecency of electric production.
By cooling the panel with the water the heat is being carried away to a holding tank to heat the house water.
Brilliant idea but the tv show did not give any links to the company.
If anyone has any info about how to contact them please let me know.
mizzenstay@hotmail.com
I saw a DIY or Home & Garden TV program (I dont recall which one) that had that specific topic. An engineer determined that the existing solar panels lacked efficiency. So what he decided to do was integrate water through the photovoltaic panels to serve several purposes. The first was to make the panel itself more efficient by keeping it cooler. How is this achieved, well run water through the panel. This in turn heats water as it goes through the panel, and therefore saving money on the amount of time and fuel it takes to heat that water up to a useable temperature. Now if that were combined with a hot water on demand the savings could be considerable. All the while making the system more efficient. Good concept but unfortunately I don't recall the program episode or channel.
I am looking for that also! I saw part of the program TODAY, Saturday, April 11, on planetgreen.
I WAS WATCHING A PROGRAM ON PLANET GREEN SEVERAL WEEKS AGO CALLED, ”RENOVATION NATION” THEY HAD A MAN WHO WAS MAKING THESE DUAL SOLAR, WATER HEATING PANELS AND WAS TRYING TO GET A COMPANY TO BUILD THEM WITH ALL POSSIBLE PAPER WORK, THE MAN WHO WAS NARRATING AND WHO IS USUALLY ON SHOW WAS STEVE THOMAS, I HAVE NOT FOUND ANY INFORMATION AFTER THAT SHOW EITHER. ALSO LIVING WITH ED ON PLANET GREEN HAD A VERTICLE WIND TURBINE ON HIS HOUSE, LIKE A PLUG AND PLAY UNIT. SAME THING ON HIS ROOF, JAY LENO , CAN NOT ONLY FIND REFERENCE TO ONE MADE IN CHINA. PLEASE POST IF ANYONE FINDS ANYTHING FOR EITHER OF THESE. THANKS IN ADVANCE.
Any news for this system? i am interested by building one.
It would make sense, because photovoltaic cells are a lot more efficient when cool. Thus I do think such panels exist already.