8 August 2011

ANU re-inventing the solar hot water system.

8 August 2011 | johnboy

The Australian National University has announced they’ve pocketed funding to develop a cunning mixed solar/electric hot water system:

“The aim of this project is to develop and commercialise an improved roof-mounted hybrid solar system that is suitable for installation on millions of domestic, commercial and industrial buildings.

“The key innovation is the use of spectral splitting of sunlight to improve the overall effectiveness. We will deliver solar photovoltaic electricity as well as solar heat at a temperature of 150º by focusing the intense beam of sunlight onto a concentrating collector,” said Professor Blakers.

The Government’s Australian Solar Institute has chipped in $3.24 million.

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Pandy11:20 pm 10 Aug 11

Have they got Pat Pending upon it?

aidan1:07 pm 09 Aug 11

chewy14 said :

Haven’t they been doing this for like a decade with the CHAPS system?

Is that system still running? Doesn’t seem to do much tracking these days …

But from the small amount of information, I think this might be different. Note the “spectral splitting” bit. The CHAPS system just seemed to use the water to cool the cells, which helps with efficiency (silicon PV works better at lower temperatures), and so was a by-product to some extent.

Spectral splitting sounds like they’re doing something clever to deliver the frequencies of light the solar PV can actually use, and using the rest of the spectrum to heat water. Or something.

Hybrid solar pv/thermal systems already exist, but they seem to mostly work the same way as CHAP, removing heat from the panels.

chewy147:02 pm 08 Aug 11

Haven’t they been doing this for like a decade with the CHAPS system?

Gungahlin Al5:37 pm 08 Aug 11

A single hybrid solar system that does both hot water and electricity? Brilliant! Particularly given the often limited north-facing roof space people have.

Doing some great work there at ANU Prof Blakers!

You can use my roof to trial it.

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