Stacking magnifying glasses for solar

[Landon Caeli]

Is it possible to stack magnifying glasses as high as 150 feet, and stagger them in a way that produces a solid beam of highly magnified, intensified light onto a solar panel, in order to increase energy production?

 

[Astrid]

Is it possible to stack magnifying glasses as high as 150 feet, and stagger them in a way that produces a solid beam of highly magnified, intensified light onto a solar panel, in order to increase energy production?

Rube Goldburg

 

[Landon Caeli]

Rube Goldburg

Is that because the photons are limited in number, and you can recieve the same amount of light by simply building a wider solar panel?

...Or can light be manipulated?

 

[keith99]

Is that because the photons are limited in number, and you can recieve the same amount of light by simply building a wider solar panel?

...Or can light be manipulated?

Yes a wider panel does jsut as well. Working along the lines you proposed a mirror would work far better.

There was a far better proposal made over 80 years ago! Isaac Asimov proposed using power satelites with large collectors which could then point a columnated beam to collectors on Earth in the story Reason.

It was first published in 1941 and first collected in the book I, Robot (which is nothing like the film). It is worth pointing out that this technology was only a background to get 2 humans out in space with very advanced robots to deal with what would reasonably be deduced by those robots with knowledge focused on that environment.

 

[Ponderous Curmudgeon]

Is that because the photons are limited in number, and you can recieve the same amount of light by simply building a wider solar panel?

...Or can light be manipulated?

The total input is limited by the size of the first lens after that, the lenses just concentrate and melt a tiny hole in the solar panel unless you mean that multiple non aligned lenses create a larger original area.
If you replace the lens with a mirror as is done in space and other large telescopes this has already been done as in the Odiello Solar Furnace. On a smaller scale they are called solar ovens and my sister uses one all the time.
On the scale you are thinking for the purpose of electricity generation they are called Solar Power Towers (worth a read) And there are quite a few already operating.

 

[Belk]

I seem to recall there are some plants that use light concentration to heat water which then power turbines.

 

[Landon Caeli]

The total input is limited by the size of the first lens after that, the lenses just concentrate and melt a tiny hole in the solar panel unless you mean that multiple non aligned lenses create a larger original area.

Yes, I was imagining them staggered, each one beaming a tiny beam, but collectively, a million tiny beams together, would create a large beam.

 

[prodromos]

There was a far better proposal made over 80 years ago! Isaac Asimov proposed using power satelites with large collectors which could then point a columnated beam to collectors on Earth in the story Reason

Satelite gets 'accidently' knocked out of alignment and incinerates [insert person/town/state that has been refusing to accept the narrative]

 

[durangodawood]

Is it possible to stack magnifying glasses as high as 150 feet, and stagger them in a way that produces a solid beam of highly magnified, intensified light onto a solar panel, in order to increase energy production?

Concentrated light like that would destroy a PV panel.

But concentrated light via shaped mirror arrays is currently used to power steam turbines/generators, as already mentioned.

New material could up efficiency of concentrated solar power

 

[Aldebaran]

Yes, I was imagining them staggered, each one beaming a tiny beam, but collectively, a million tiny beams together, would create a large beam.

Your description sounds a lot like what we saw the Death Star do in the first Star Wars movie.

 

[Ponderous Curmudgeon]

Satelite gets 'accidently' knocked out of alignment and incinerates [insert person/town/state that has been refusing to accept the narrative]

And it was a secret till Marjorie Taylor Greene blabbed about the Jewish space lasers.

 

[Halbhh]

Is that because the photons are limited in number, and you can recieve the same amount of light by simply building a wider solar panel?

...Or can light be manipulated?

A solar panel will likely be designed to handle just normal full sunlight, because the panel must heat up and also be able to handle the heat. (If one took a panel designed for ordinary full sunlight and then overloaded it with extra light far above that normal level, it seems likely to me it could overheat, and that might prevent it's efficient operation.)

On the other hand, it's possible to use concentrated solar energy from a large area onto a small area for solar power this way:

Oh, wait, it's above in post #9 already.

 

[Mountainmike]

Is it possible to stack magnifying glasses as high as 150 feet, and stagger them in a way that produces a solid beam of highly magnified, intensified light onto a solar panel, in order to increase energy production?

The Biggest telescopes are reflector, not refractor.
Part of the reason is spectral limitations of lenses.

 

[Aldebaran]

The Biggest telescopes are reflector, not refractor.
Part of the reason is spectral limitations of lenses.

Plus the much greater expense of large lenses vs. mirrors.
The world's largest refractor is 40" at Yerkes Observatory. The largest reflectors just keep getting bigger.