The technology village not that far from here has example housing that uses light->heat via water tanks, it's pretty impressive. To my mind building new housing without this type of facility (or an alternative) is incredibly short-sighted (especially in places less cloudy than Wales). On 21 Feb 2011, at 23:35, Joshua Zucker wrote:
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 3:32 PM, David Makin <makinmagic@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
I know, but what's the efficiency rating of state-of-the-art solar cells ?
About 40%, AFAIK, in converting solar to electricity.
Also, probably more relevant, what's the efficiency rating of light->solar->electric heater->heat compared to light->anti-laser->heat ?
A lot of people think that this is exactly the problem: the right way to use solar is light->solar->heat. The electricity step is hugely inefficient. Just paint a big water tank black. OK, so it's not quite that simple, but it's a lot cheaper than photovoltaic and more efficient too.
--Joshua
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