The Rawlemon is thousands of time more efficient than normal solar panels

Jan 14, 2014 07:18 GMT  ·  By

Until not long ago, solar panels weren't all that popular because they were not efficient enough to justify the price, unless you were going to build a huge solar farm with them. Now, though, we might actually have something that even consumers can use: a solar ball lens.

Well, maybe that's not really true. After all, manufacturing and certifying solar collection systems is mired in bureaucracy and red tape for some reason.

Still, the Rawlemon (that's the name of the solar ball lens) might become the first solar power harvesting system to succeed as a commercial product.

It might not make it into the normal retail channels, but it should be able to build a supplier-customer network of its own.

Rawlemon was created by German architect named Andre Broessel over the past three years. According to him, the ball lens is thousands of times better than normal solar panels, simply because it is filled with water.

How does that help, you might ask? The water in the ball (which itself refracts light into a powerful concentrated ray, being a ball lens and all) magnifies the sun rays by over 10,000 times, allowing the tiny solar panels situated below the base of the sphere to harvest much more energy than would otherwise be possible.

The system is so efficient that it can draw power even during a cloudy day, and even at night if the moon is visible.

In addition to its tremendous efficiency, the Rawlemon has a microtracker that follows the course of the sun, tilting the panels accordingly.

Altogether, the Rawlemon wastes up to 70% less sunlight than typical solar panels but can turn much more of it into energy simply because the rays that actually hit the solar panels themselves are much more concentrated as well.

"Our product is democratic," Broessel told Gizmodo. "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."

If you want to see one of these balls on every building someday, you can make a financial pledge on Indiegogo. The inventor and his team are making a smaller Rawlemon ball, meant to be used to charge devices called Beta.ey.

In the future, they also intend to make solar charging windows and work towards their vision of self-sustaining skyscrapers. Indiegogo funders will still get small, desktop-sized Rawlemon balls though.

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