IBM develops new solar collector that increases solar energy collection efficiency by 10 times

The 50-foot-wide dish is expected to provide 24kWh of electricity in solar power plants in Biasca and Ruschlikon, which will be built in a three-year development project funded by a $2.4 million grant from the Swiss Council for Technology and Innovation (CTI). In addition to IBM and Airlight Energy, the project also involves the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and the Interstate University of Applied Sciences.

　　"We used cooling technology developed by IBM for high-performance computers to reduce the thermal resistance of solar cells by a factor of 10," said Bruno Michel, manager of advanced thermal packaging at IBM Research. "We used commercial triple-junction solar cells with 80% efficiency and nearly the entire solar spectrum to achieve 2,000-5,000 times higher solar concentration efficiency, compared to 300-500 times higher efficiency with air cooling."

　　Higher solar energy can be concentrated through an array of 36 lenses on this 50-foot dish. The dish can continuously track and aim high-energy light from nearly 100 triple-junction solar cell arrays on the central substrate (each of which can generate 200-250W of electricity) as the sun moves. Without IBM's water cooling technology, the solar energy collected from the sun may generate temperatures high enough to evaporate the chips. The water channels arranged in layers through the IBM microfluidic substrate can dissipate heat for the solar cells.

　　The HCPVT system developed by IBM and Airlight can concentrate sunlight on hundreds of micro-liquid-cooled triple-junction PV cells to provide 25kW of electricity.