Lately I've been thinking about solar power. I did a little investigating to see how much it would cost/pay to have a few solar panels mounted over the deck.
Lately I've been thinking about solar power. I did a little investigating to see how much it would cost/pay to have a few solar panels mounted over the deck.
Since most panels are less than 20% efficient I thought about making a mirror with mylar film and maybe focusing several mirrors on one panel to increase the output. After doing a minor amount of research I discovered that this would void the warranty.
So I let the idea die - at least for a few days. Then I got to thinking about using a stirling engine. By creating a parabolic mirror and mounting a stirling engine at the focal point I could seemingly generate electricity more efficiency than using solar panels with or without reflectors.
Like most of my ideas for something new, someone has already thought of it.
The good news is it looks like I was right. It seems to work. I'll have to do some more reading to find out how well. No doubt in the end it'll still be to expensive to justify my actually building one.