Maybe I’m misunderstanding but would diffuse light be what it’s going to be best at? While it’d be worse on a sunny day when there is an optimal direction for the light?
It’s the opposite of a light house fresnel lens - instead of scattering the light source evenly out, it’ll capture diffuse even incoming better and concentrate it on the photovoltaic cell? However it would be at the cost of being able to capture direct sunlight as only some of the lens would ever be in the best position to capture the direct rays?
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
No. Concentrated solar requires perfect alignment, dual axis tracking, to the sun. diffuse light does not concentrate.
A reasonable alternative design would be cheap ordinary PV cells with outward bubbles instead of inverted parabolas that would capture off axis light better on a fixed tilt.