Revolutionary Goop!

A Californian-based company, Sunrgi, have hit the headlines this month with news that they may have revolutionised the solar energy collection business. Sungri is claiming it can collect twice as much sunlight as other photovoltaic designs and convert it to electricity for 5 cents a kilowatt-hour, on par with fossil fuels.


The company’s technology uses a system based on lenses, which focus the sunlight onto photovoltaic cells and allow for increased numbers of photons to be collected by smaller numbers of cells. This means the collector arrays need less photovoltaic cells then other systems, reducing their cost considerably.

The downside is that there is an extreme over heating problem. As the photovoltaic cells are extremely fragile this is a huge problem. It’s one, however, which Sungri claim to have solved with ‘goop’. Paul Sidlo, co-founder of Sungri, said the nanotube compound is mounted on the back of the solar cells to conduct heat away. The company plans to begin production in about 15 months.

The result isn’t your average solar module. If they can pull this off, the technology might be revolutionary.