Hypersolar prototype solar concentrator film increases solar cell output by 300%

This looks promising:

Santa Barbara, CA – February 15, 2011 – HyperSolar, Inc.,, the developer of a breakthrough technology that magnifies the power of the sun to significantly increase the power output of solar cells, today announced that it has successfully completed a prototype design of its innovative thin solar concentrator.

Tim Young, CEO of HyperSolar, commented, “Our ultimate goal is to develop an inexpensive and thin solar concentrator for use in replacing expensive solar cells in conventional flat solar panels. After a year of intense research and development, we are excited to report that we have finally achieved a prototype design that we believe can be refined into a commercial product. While this initial prototype is designed to provide 300% light magnification, we are aiming for at least 400% in our final commercial product.”

The company anticipates the commercial version of the HyperSolar concentrator will be approximately 1 centimeter thick and will be applied as the top sheet on flat solar panels. The initial prototype will be a single micro-concentrator module fabricated at a larger size to facilitate testing and validation of its real-life performance. Once the photonic and optical characteristics of the micro-concentrator module are validated and refined, the design can be easily miniaturized for use in the mass production of the commercial version HyperSolar concentrator.

When successfully commercialized, a HyperSolar concentrator delivering 400% light magnification can reduce the number of solar cells in a solar panel by 75%, thereby dramatically reducing the cost per watt of solar electricity.

“Unlike current concentrated photovoltaic solutions that require bulky mirrors or lenses and sun tracking mechanisms, the HyperSolar concentrator will be a thin and flat self-tracking solar concentrator that conventional solar manufacturers can use in conventional flat solar panels. A HyperSolar concentrator is a concentrator like no other with a multi-billion square feet opportunity. Every square foot of solar panel demand is an opportunity to reduce the number of expensive solar cells by incorporating a square foot of HyperSolar,” concluded Mr. Young.