[KleerKut]

Agreed. Unless you have serious space constraints, more cheap panels which last decades is far cheaper and less maintenance than any solar concentrators or solar tracking that will fail long before the panels. I could see those technologies being useful on a trailer for generating power in remote locations, but not for the typical home or solar farm. I'd imagine those lenses would amplify the shading caused by typical dirt and debris, requiring more labor costs.

The other thing is that solar concentrators burn the cells out quicker, it isn't magic free energy. Spending a significant amount more money just to squeeze out more power from the cells doesn't make sense for all applications.

[hedora]

There is (was?) a company that made terra cotta tile shaped concentrators that were laid on top of solar panels. They claimed this used something like 30% less PV panels for the same output, and that, because the panels were shielded from UV / precipitation, increased the usable lifespan by a decade or so.

I think they went under back when Tesla was false-advertising their roof prices to suppress competition in the market, but I’d love to be proven wrong.

[dotancohen]

  > solar concentrators burn the cells out quicker

Do you have a source that I could reference for that? Thank you.

[KleerKut]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell#Disposal

Concentrators are actively trying to put more of the suns energy (an thus UV degradation) on the cells than can be achieved by simply aiming the cell at the sun. It greatly depends on the type of cell being used, with many technologies having a shorter lifespan than polycrystalline and monocrystalline cells, but they don't last forever out in the sun. A panel boxed up in a warehouse isn't likely to have discernible cell degradation in 10 years. A panel flat on a roof having off-axis light will degrade more, one on a solar tracker will degrade more still, with the benefit of more power per unit time during that shortened lifespan. Add in concentrators and it will degrade more still. Much like anything else. I'm getting no sun indoors, get more standing in my yard, get even more standing near water where it reflects back at me and get sunburn (degradation) quicker in that environment.

Obviously it makes sense to aim the panels at the sun, and having a method to seasonally adjust the tilt can be done for very cheap. It can be made to last the life of the panels without repair, and it isn't an outrageous loss of performance if it was forgotten for a few weeks. Active sun trackers can potentially cost more than the panel itself, even more so when factoring in installation and setup. If it fails aiming to one extreme, there will be a substantial loss in power even compared to a panel with a fixed mount. That failure is likely to happen more than a couple times in the life of the panel, unless you replace parts before failure (even more cost), or add concentrators (more cost) to increase output and decrease panel life (more cost yet again). Unless there is a specific reason for all of that cost and complexity, such as space constraints or other factors, then it is cheaper to just lay out more panels. If a new technology comes out where they can stop UV degradation without a large impact on power output, or weight, or cost, then I'll be interested. For my use case I'd rather reduce my energy usage and lay panels in the sun with seasonal cleaning and adjustment.

[dotancohen]

Thank you very much.

I also opted to just add more panels. There is a finite amount of sunlight hitting my roof, the only advantage to tilting the panels are easier cleaning and passage. If I could tilt a single large panel at x degrees then I could absorb cos(x) more sunlight but the thing would stand up above my roof to a height of sin(x)*roofLength and would blow over in the wind.