MIT Making Super Efficient Origami Solar Panels

ByronScott writes "Could the next solar panels be in the shapes of origami cranes? They could be if MIT power engineering professor Jeffrey Grossman has his say. Standard flat solar panels are only optimized to capture sunlight at one point of the sun's trajectory — otherwise they need automated tracking systems to follow the sun. But Grossman found that folded solar cell systems could produce constant power throughout the day sans tracking and his new designs are up to two and a half times more efficient per comparative length and width than traditional flat arrays."

Folding@home?

[tomhudson]

So, we could use these folding panels to power computers folding@home, and the waste heat can warm our houses as a green solution to heating. Just be ready to spend more of that other green folding stuff ...

Useless approximation

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, this will work wonders for my zero-cost zero-thickness self-intersecting perfectly rigid solar panels. I just hope my spherical vacuum-chickens don't try to nest in it.

Folded Solar Cells

[oodaloop]

Folded Solar Cells
Capturing sunlight all day
It's been done before

Re:Go get some culture

[Anonymous Coward]

kamigotoki
so-ra-paneru
orumonka

Re:Tired of hearing about super efficient..

[Anonymous Coward]

as a solar panel researcher, i will outline the problem:

every startup that i work for makes super efficient solar cells and panels. we generate so much energy in the R&D phase that we have to pay people to take it off of our hands. we eventually spend all of our VC paying people to take all that extra energy off our hands and we collapse financially.

my most recent solar cell array is so efficient, it burns down most houses only minutes after installation.