MIDDLE EAST: Israeli scientists say a breakthrough on solar power can make it a viable energy source

The essential need for electric power in an era of oil crises and global warming has raised a world-wide interest in methods of solar energy manufacturing. Israeli scientists say they have discovered a way to mass produce solar energy efficiently enough to compete with oil and other conventional fuels. David Faiman, a professor of physics at Ben Gurion University, is the head of the National Center for Solar Energy in Israel's Negev desert. Faiman, who studied solar energy for 31 years, said that By using two separate devices -- one to collect and intensify the sunlight, and one to convert the rays into electricity -- he can produce the same amount of electricity as a conventional power plant for the same price. The key to harnessing the sun's power efficiently is to replace ordinary solar panels that both collect and convert sunlight into electricity with solar panels that only convert, Faiman said. At the southern communal farm of Sde Boker, Faiman created a reflector made of mirrors that he said collects and intensifies the light a thousand times over. The photovoltaic, or solar, cells in the panels used by Faiman's team are able to handle a much higher intensity of light. This intense light, which Faiman says is strong enough to carbonize a person, is directed at the solar panel, which converts the light into energy with twice the efficiency as ordinary panels. "The achievement is that we separate out the collection function of a photovoltaic cell to the light conversion to electricity function. When we collect the light, instead of using a huge area of solar cells, we use an equal area of cheap glass mirrors and they are curved in such a way as to concentrate the light onto a very small solar cell, the size of just one cell, and in this way you concentrate the light a thousand times and you can get a thousand times more power out of a small cell," Faiman told Reuters. A single 10 centimetre (3 inch) square receiver under intensified sunlight can produce as much energy as 10 metres (30 feet) of traditional solar panel in regular sunlight, Faiman said. "In fact we got 1,500 thousand times and we expect to be able to get 3,000 times as much, which reduces the cost of this expensive material almost to nothing," Faiman said. He said that the costs per watt are comparable to that of a conventional power plant, but without fuel, and added that the new technology can solve the energy problem of all sunny countries. Solar energy has traditionally been dismissed as inefficient and expensive, though its proponents say it would be a limitless and environmental-friendly energy source to replace coal, oil and nuclear power. While the reflectors in new system still requires a large surface area to mass produce electrify, the amount of solar panels needed is minimal, greatly reducing the cost. A solar energy system built on 12 square kilometres in the Negev would produce 1,000 mega watts of electricity, or approximately 10% of Israel's general electricity need, Faiman said. Faiman said he is collaborating with an Israeli start-up company, Zenith Solar, to create a home solar energy system with a 10 metre square reflector dish. "The average person who lives in a sunny area, perhaps the desert of California, or Texas, or New Mexico, Nevada, or Spain, Italy, south of France, north Africa, anywhere in the Middle East, would be able to put a dish in his garden, about 10-square meters, that's about three metres by three metres, and generate most of the home's electricity needs," Faiman said. Faiman would not discuss the terms of the deal, but he said a prototype already exists and the system could be ready by the end of 2008. Zenith Solar would not comment on the project. Israel, which is looking for alternative energy sources, is researching the costs of Faiman's solar energy systems for the home. The ministry of infrastructure said in a statement it was familiar with Professor Faiman's system and that it was the ministry's goal to "integrate renewable energy in the most fitting way into the Israeli market". "I think it can solve the energy problems of many countries, essentially all sunny countries," said Faiman.

ITN Source | August 29, 2007

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