Generating Power from Solar Sphere Design

World electricity demand is rapidly overtaking the power supply. Solar cell power is an alternative method of power generation. In this report, the application of a new concentrated photovoltaic technology called a solar sphere is tested experimentally. This technology works by collecting solar energy and concentrating it into a small area (focal point). The focused solar energy is able to generate a huge amount of power that can be used to produce far more electricity than alternative photovoltaic designs. The experiments are conducted for different type of shapes, different sizes and different fluid materials. First, 3 shapes are tested: a full sphere, only the upper half of a sphere, and only the bottom half of the sphere. Then, they are compared with normal photovoltaics (PV) that have the same area as the spheres. The full sphere with the same material produces around triple the power output of the half spheres and 4 times the power output of other PV with the same area. 3 different sphere sizes are also used: 10 cm diameter, 12 cm diameter and 30 cm diameter. The 12 cm diameter sphere produces 0.8 times the power output of the 10 cm diameter sphere while the 30 cm diameter sphere produces around 4 times the power output of the 12 cm diameter one. The results clarify that increasing the size of the sphere results in an increase in the power output. Finally, different materials (solids, liquids, gasses) are tested. The solid materials are glass, crystal and acrylic while the liquids are the oil, water and alcohol, and the gas used is the air. The experiments show that all solid materials produce the highest power output. However, these solid materials produce high heat at the same time, so they are not desirable for generating electricity. The sphere filled with oil produces 1.5 times more power output than the one filled with alcohol while the sphere filled with alcohol produces double the power output of the sphere filled with water. The sphere filled with air had the lowest power output compared to the other substances.