German Architect Andre Broessel believes he has a solution that can “squeeze more juice out of the sun”, even during the night hours and in low-light regions. His company Rawlemon has created a spherical sun power generator prototype called the beta.ray. His technology will combine spherical geometry principles with a dual axis tracking system, allowing twice the yield of a conventional solar panel in a much smaller surface area. The futuristic design is fully rotational and is suitable for inclined surfaces, walls of buildings, and anywhere with access to the sky. It can even be used as an electric car charging station. Scroll down for photos and videos…
“The beta.ray comes with a hybrid collector to convert daily electricity and thermal energy at the same time. While reducing the silicon cell area to 25% with the equivalent power output by using our ultra transmission Ball Lens point focusing concentrator, it operates at efficiency levels of nearly 57% in hybrid mode. At nighttime the Ball Lens can transform into a high-power lamp to illuminate your location, simply by using a few LED’s. The station is designed for off grid conditions as well as to supplement buildings’ consumption of electricity and thermal circuits like hot water.”
How it works:
The modular collector system charges and stores energy during daylight hours and can even collect energy from the moon during night hours:
Suitability for conventional CPV and thermal power plants:
Suitability for solar hybrid power plants with Rawlemon technologies:
Electric Car Charging Station:
More Photos:
Watch the videos:
Visit the Rawlemon Website
What do you think? Does this technology have potential?
Perk Earl on Mon, 13th Apr 2015 6:59 pm
What’s with the spaghetti of wires near the top?
What’s the price of one?
How many do I need to support a 3bd,2ba with 600sqft separate studio with k/ba?
Davy on Mon, 13th Apr 2015 8:27 pm
I think this is a beautiful construction and it is something that will produce power. That is a great combination. My problem with these sorts of things is the cost benefit within the time frame of the bumpy descent we are likely in. We should be in crisis mode constructing low cost, simple, and reliable devices for as many end users as possible. Instead as usual we are enraptured with technology.
Technology will fail. We don’t know how this complex interconnected technological society will fail but it is destine to fail. When technology progresses to a point of complexity, energy intensity and interconnectivity the resilience is brittle. If energy intensity and complexity cannot be maintained it bifurcates into useless parts that do not work.
Technology has a point of diminishing returns to base resilience that is hidden by progress. As progress accelerates with increased complexity and energy intensity base resilience loss is not noticed. There is a complexity resilience not a base resilience. This solar technology is yet another example of costly technological tweaking that will not increase base resilience. Base resilience would be 100 end user homes with basic lighting for the cost of this device. That is the difference.
Perk Earl on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 1:33 am
“This solar technology is yet another example of costly technological tweaking that will not increase base resilience.”
That’s probably true, Davy. As a homeowner with no solar so far I’m looking at all alternatives, because our house was built to take advantage of lake views (facing east) not the Sun, facing south. I’ve checked with a solar company, that used Google Earth to determine feasibility and it failed from a conventional panels on roof standpoint.
So I was looking at this as a possible alternative option to place on an area of open grassy ground below the house. But it all come down to numbers; cost, how many would needed, etc.
I saw an article on this design a few years back and it didn’t have any answers to my questions then either. I have the impression the designer is putting this in the news every now and then to see if it can generate more excitement, investment.
Rawlemon on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 5:28 am
Hey guys! in our website you can get as many answers as you need. You have technical data sheets of our products, prices, pre-order and in case you have more answers you can send us an email:
http://www.rawlemon.com
The designer is not “putting this in the news every now and then” the media is interested and putting it in their sites.
Hope to hear from you!
Rawlemon team
Davy on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 7:15 am
Perk, stay simple, low tech, and reliable. That type of system will be low cost. I am just not sold on whole house systems unless you are like the G-Man on our forum who has AltE systems as his specialty. If that is what you love to do and you are good at it then go elaborate with an AltE systems. The rest of us should think about lighting and small appliances.
The reality of the situation is protection from brown outs and or a short term power crisis. If the grid stays down it is unclear whether folks with elaborate systems will keep them operational from security or technical reasons. We just don’t know how this descent will be. The possibilities are diverse from where, when, and how. Timing of how long is an issues. Will your local become a mad max-a-thon or remain relatively stable with community cooperation. Do something to keep the lights on for a short or medium term grid disruption.
The cost savings for a whole house system are just not there currently for most people to justify a large whole house system with a long term payoff. I believe in a hybrid affair of dual systems. Utilize the grid for high draw items. Use your smaller AltE system for backup or run small items side by side with grid power. We have little time for action. Do something now that covers basics. If you enjoy tinkering with the systems do more but so something.
Lawfish1964 on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 7:27 am
A perusal of the site linked above shows that nowhere can you find out exactly how much power this thing produces. The big ball (180 cm) costs 8,900 Euros. All you can find out is that it produces about twice the power of the same size conventional PV system. I’d say that big one is about the size of a conventional 250 watt PV, so that means for 8 grand you can get 500 watts of power. Conventional would cost $500. I’ll stick with conventional.
Davy on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 7:53 am
RAW, BEAUTIFUL creation but costly for effective prepping when so many other activities are needed. If I had the money and wanted a structure of beauty this is it. You will fill a needed niche but you are not a silver bullet. If you treat your product with that in mind I say good luck and godspeed.
ghung on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 9:13 am
From the linked site : Beta.ray 1.80 €8,999.00. Yikes…
Again we see greatly increased complexity and cost to achieve greater (claimed) efficiency. Not sure that’s so efficient in the end. Balance-of-system costs notwithstanding, I could install about 8kW of PV for €8,999.00, plenty for powering an average home in my area. Anyway, cool looking design. If it works as claimed, it may find a niche.
Problem being, no actual specs on output or real-world side-by-side comparisons to conventional PV. Lots of percent this and percent that, but no numbers. What time-based output (kWh) can I expect from my 9000 Euro investment? I get leery when those numbers don’t appear up front. Pretty pictures though.
gdubya on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 10:09 am
Is that a solid glass sphere with no internal flaws? Can I assume it weighs thousands of pounds that will fall through my roof? Did it take mega joules of energy to glassily that much sand? It might be more efficient to make it from thousands of pounds of petroleum based plastic but that will lose clarity fairly quickly.
It really is very pretty. Shiny. Very shiny. I want one.
Marty on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 12:24 pm
Cute if it’s real but it looks like a ray traced CG sphere and photoshop somehow.
Perk Earl on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 12:52 pm
Thanks for the link, Rawlemon! I shall bookmark, compare pricing etc. It just may be the answer for our property.
Perk Earl on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 3:38 pm
After reading about it some more and looking at prices, I think it’s very hi-tech looking but we can get better value from other systems.
Fareed on Mon, 24th Dec 2018 7:48 am
I read your article it is very informative and easy to understand.
I also read that spherical sun power generator can produce electricity even at the night.
here is the URL of that source http://www.renewableworld.net/rawlemon-glass-sphere-working-benefits/