These Solar Glass Orbs Are Super Efficient Energy Generators

Rawlemon is a perfectly spherical glass ball designed by the German architect Andre Broessel and its aim is to make solar power more efficient and less expensive. Broessel wants this type of technology to be available to everyone, no matter where they are.

“Our product is democratic,” he says. “Imagine, we are conceiving autonomous products able to concentrate the light even during a cloudy day, which are generating sun powered energy wherever you are in the world. Energy for free.”

What is truly amazing about Rawlemon is that it works just as efficiently at night as it does during the day, thanks to the fact that it can harvest moonlight, as well as the sun on a cloudy day. It works because its globe is filled with water that magnifies the sun’s rays by more than 10,000 times. The photovoltaic panels are situated directly below the sphere where the magnified rays can hit them.

The theory behind this design is not a new one, with ball lenses being a mechanism that has been known for a number of centuries. Yet Broessel has created a microtracker so that Rawlemon can follow the course of the sun, tilt the panels and efficiently capture more of the sun’s rays. The tracker, along with the ball lens, makes Rawlemon 70 percent more efficient than a standard solar panel, which normally can only lay in a static position.

It might be some time before we this technology on a domestic level though because as Broessel explains, manufactuting and certifying solar collection systems involves a lot of bureaucratic red tape and is not easy to market.

“People get very quickly confused [and] that makes it hard for us to get funded,” he says. “That’s why our challenge right now is also to communicate to people that our project is the smartest innovation in solar energy since the invention of PV panels.”

If you want to find out more about Rawlemon, then check out the Indiegogo campaign.

[Image via Inhabitat]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/these-beautiful-solar-orbs-are-so-efficient-they-even-h-1500329295