MIT researchers have devised something they call the Solar Concentrator which is to be placed on top of existing solar cells. Its purpose is to separate the visible and infrared spectra of light by absorbing the visible spectrum and routing the energy to specialized cells. They claim this could lead to doubling the panel’s efficiency and greatly reducing costs.

We have seen many promising advances to solar panel efficiency in the past few years, but what is special about this one is the amazingly simple and cheap technique. Essentially, all the team has done is coat a piece of glass with simple organic dyes. After the organic molecules absorb the visible light, they remit the energy to the sides of the glass where it can be routed to their specific cells. The process is more efficient because the dye absorbs the light rather than something expensive like silicon. That means less silicon, and thus a better price range. Also, the fact that this material is just a piece of glass also opens up the possibility of solar windows.

You will need a battery-powered lawnmower for this, as well as a 12-volt solar charger with a car lighter jack. This easy hack mainly involves a small amount of work with the wiring; the car lighter jack must be removed from the solar panel so that the wires can be attached to the batteries. Yeah, that’s it. We’d love to see a more elegant solution since the way it is now you have switch the wiring from parallel to series everytime you want to mow.

For a more complete lawnmower hack, check out this remote control lawnmower.

It’s not a homebrew setup, but it’s good to see an article detailing all that is involved. We’ll take you through the tech side of it after the break.

The first thing to discuss is the overall architecture of a home solar power source. Power is collected by the panels as DC power, which is converted to AC by an inverter. The inverter feeds the AC power to the main circuit box, which distributes it to the house.

The panels themselves are not installed until a few steps later; first, the mounting racks, the inverter, and a safety cutoff switch are installed. Once that has been completed, the wiring that would connect to the panels was installed into the racks. After installing grounding wires, the wiring is connected to the conduit that links it to the inverter. Then it is possible to install the panels themselves. The safety switch can then be flipped on, allowing the juice to flow into the main circuit box. Bear in mind that although the process is well-detailed in the article, you still need municipal permits to have an alternative energy source (even if it’s something other than solar panels, like this wind turbine we featured earlier), so self-installation should be considered carefully.

Even if you can’t afford such an extreme home mod, it’s interesting to note that the company that did the installation, ReGrid Power, claimed that the solar setup would cover 75% of the user’s energy needs, cutting down about 90% of the monthly cost. The author also mentions that the cost can be recouped in nine years. Not bad numbers, and it’ll make your life greener. Still, if you’re eager to start now, try these instructions on how to build a solar panel using common household items.