More info from their site for you Canibul,


 

The current pictures reflect the prototype version of the new model JIL-3000. In the manufactured version all cells will be recessed and the surface will be smooth.

Question: How do you get so much power from a solar panel?

Answer: We have overcome three major obstacles of typical solar panel on the market: 1) photons which have too short a wavelength bounce off and are not absorbed; 2) those with too long a wavelength go thru the panel and end up as heat; 3) and lastly electrons that sit on the skin and fail to go thru the junction.

A typical solar cell acts more like a diode having one PN junction. DBK technologically advanced solar panel performs more like an integrated circuit (IC).

Question: Multi-junctions PV cells have been around for years. What make your multi-junction cell different?

Answer: Most multi-junction cells use two or three junctions. DBK's panels use a minimum of five junctions each designed to serve different functions. Actually our panels are configured from cells that have a band gap that is considered unacceptable by other manufactures (including embedded chips as shown on the prototype). This is multiple energy layer technology (MEL)

Also: 04-10-2006, 20:00

High Efficiency Solar Cell breakthrough
Posted on Sunday, February 19, 2006 @ 10:48:33 PST by vlad
yru4 writes: From KeelyNet News: In a scientific breakthrough that has stunned the world, a team of South African scientists has developed a revolutionary new, highly efficient solar power technology that will enable homes to obtain all their electricity from the sun. The unique South African-developed solar panels will make it possible for houses to become completely self-sufficient for energy supplies. The panels are able to generate enough energy to run stoves, geysers, lights, TVs, fridges, computers - in short all the mod-cons of the modern house.

The new technology should be available in South Africa within a year and through a special converter, energy can be fed directly into the wiring of existing houses. New powerful storage units will allow energy storage to meet demands even in winter. The panels are so efficient they can operate through a Cape Town winter. while direct sunlight is ideal for high-energy generation, other daytime light also generates energy via the panels. A team of scientists led by University of Johannesburg (formerly Rand Afrikaans University) scientist Professor Vivian Alberts achieved the breakthrough after 10 years of research. The South African technology has now been patented across the world. International experts have admitted that nothing else comes close to the effectiveness of the South African invention. The South African solar panels consist of a thin layer of a unique metal alloy that converts light into energy. The photo-responsive alloy can operate on virtually all flexible surfaces, which means it could in future find a host of other applications. Alberts said the new panels are approximately five microns thick (a human hair is 20 microns thick) while the older silicon panels are 350 microns thick. the cost of the South African technology is a fraction of the less effective silicone solar panels.

Original Source: SA Solar Breakthrough
-----------stevem4u

Thanks Steve. But I am still skeptical. I see a lot of press release info, and not a shred of technical data. They keep telling the world what they claim they've done, but not one of them is describing how they have done it. I wrote several hundred press releases in my life, and until someone can show me the technical reasons these things work, I consider it all smoke and mirrors.

I don't see the connection between DBK's claims and the South African.

I did try to dig into the South African claim, and found this on a blog:

Ok I checked at the Cape Angus newpaper site, and found the original story. Unfortunately I could not delve deeper into their sources as you have to buy a subscription .

I checked at cooltech.iafrica.com (they were credited with the photograph) and came across thier story. The photograph seems to be a silicon-based panel, not one of these new ones. (why they included the picture is beyond me).

I checked into solar energy in South Africa (SA) and came across this site. Nothing mentioned about any revolutionary solar panels.

I checked at the University of Johannesburg and found nothing about it. I checked into Prof Vivian Albert and found papers he has written where he is looking into solar cells based on CuInSe2, but nothing about any breakthrough or anything.

Eskom, a SA power company, has nothing about it on their website (not surprising really--why would a power company want to promote a product like this?)

I have found some interesting sites (here, here, here for eg) (run a search on Vivian Alberts for more) It appears that Dr Alberts was granted money by the SA government in 2004 to build a pilot assembly facility and worked in co-ordination with physicists from the U of Pretoria and the U of Port Elizabeth to produce the new panels (and no doubt to test them too). The story from cooltech is from Oct 2005, and appears to have been essentially copied right onto the Earthworks site.

I really love the idea of a complete solar home, but so far, there sure seems to be a lot of snake-oil involved.

Now, I am off to go invest in a perpetual motion machine...

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we could build our own Banana Republic, if we would all just stop stealing the bananas..
Canibul 05-10-2006, 05:52

For me, when remarks like this send the bulls**tometer off the scale I know it's time to read no more.ess105 05-10-2006, 06:53

Amplifying "power" as in Watts, is impossible. Power (W) is the total energy, or the sum of Current (Amps =I) and Voltage=V or E). VxI=P. You can "amplify" or increase/decrease one of those two (V or I) but not both. In fact, the other decreases/increases respectively. Assuming you have absolutely NO LOSS, If you have 700 W @ 12V, would mean you have 58.333A of current. You could increase V to say 100V and the Current would now only be 7A. But you can not make something from nothing, so no, you can not amplify 700W and make it 3000W. Well only in cold fusion, but that's still a dream. We live here in the real world. And because we live in a real world, you have to factor in inefficiencies, so you end up with losses anytime you change something. Changing something means work. Work done equals energy used. The energy has to come from somewhere.

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Wheels
Alan Wheeler 08-10-2006, 14:41
For God so loved the world..........He didn't send a committee.

Even cold fusion didn't claim to get something from nothing. If that had worked there would have been a small mass loss as Hydrogen fused to Helium which would have accounted for the energy output (E=mc2).

Any process that claims to add energy without being able to account for it's source is bogus.

Steve  ess105 08-10-2006, 15:25

Good point Steve.
Rick, I don't doubt at all that vast improvements are still to be made with Solar technology. What I was referring to above, is that Watts is the actual total Energy available from the panel or any device and you simply can't make more energy by amplifying it.
You can certainly become more efficient at converting energy, (i.e. Sunlight to Electricity)
You can certainly obtain more energy per square ft by converting greater energy bandwidths (i.e. wider energy spectrum= -infrared-visible light-Ultraviolet)
But we simply can not change the laws of Physics and I think those Laws are rather firmly set as being accurate today. At least within our dimensions of space/time and known Universe :-)

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Wheels
Alan Wheeler 09-10-2006, 14:39
For God so loved the world..........He didn't send a committee.

I ran the DBK claims by some commercial solar energy installers....and they were, well, lets just use the word "incredulous"..

__________________
we could build our own Banana Republic, if we would all just stop stealing the bananas..
Canibul 09-10-2006, 19:06

[quote=Alan Wheeler]Good point Steve.

You can certainly become more efficient at converting energy, (i.e. Sunlight to Electricity)
You can certainly obtain more energy per square ft by converting greater energy bandwidths(i.e. wider energy spectrum= -infrared-visible light-Ultraviolet)

Has anybody commenting here ever been to DBK's factory and seen the product? Put a tester on it? There seems to be a lot of he said she said and that's just impossible stuff going down here! (as well as other sites)

I’ve been speaking over the last 2 days with Dave Tether, the inventor of the electric drive motors on the L420 about these panels and the feasibility of using them 24 hours a day to motor sail.

He says he's been doing that as often as he can the last few years on his boat with diesel backup, and sees absolutely no problem in doing so. You might know, he is the inventor and patent holder of the electric drive/generator motors, from when he owned STI, and later sold it to move to Bénéteau and develop the L420, we were on hull #2 at the boat show.

When I spoke about the DBK Grid-Tie Photovoltaic (PV) Power Panels as the power source instead of the generator, he said go look at them, put a meter on it, if it works, count me in.

I said there’s a lot of “that’s impossible!” comebacks out there! His comment was, that’s exactly what they said when I announced my discovery, because there was established math that supposedly proved I was wrong. I knew they were wrong, so I built it and guess what, proved them wrong.

So the proof is in the pudding, put a tester on it, if it puts out 3000W, call me. Their not that far away, so I'll just do that and then I’ll know!

PS. Was good to see you guys at the show!! Too bad one of the contactors went out so we didn’t get our ride but hay the in depth show and tell on the boat as just as well considering there was no wind anyway! As well as getting the first brochure and DVD was great! Nicholas, USA Lagoon, said she did 6 kts on no wind with one motor. Not bag dad!! Steve M.

[quote=Alan Wheeler]Good point Steve.

You can certainly become more efficient at converting energy, (i.e. Sunlight to Electricity)
You can certainly obtain more energy per square ft by converting greater energy bandwidths(i.e. wider energy spectrum= -infrared-visible light-Ultraviolet)

Has anybody commenting here ever been to DBK's factory and seen the product? Put a tester on it? There seems to be a lot of he said she said and that's just impossible stuff going down here! (as well as other sites)

I’ve been speaking over the last 2 days with Dave Tether, the inventor of the electric drive motors on the L420 about these panels and the feasibility of using them 24 hours a day to motor sail.

He says he's been doing that as often as he can the last few years on his boat with diesel backup, and sees absolutely no problem in doing so. You might know, he is the inventor and patent holder of the electric drive/generator motors, from when he owned STI, and later sold it to move to Bénéteau and develop the L420, we were on hull #2 at the boat show.

When I spoke about the DBK Grid-Tie Photovoltaic (PV) Power Panels as the power source instead of the generator, he said go look at them, put a meter on it, if it works, count me in.

I said there’s a lot of “that’s impossible!” comebacks out there! His comment was, that’s exactly what they said when I announced my discovery, because there was established math that supposedly proved I was wrong. I knew they were wrong, so I built it and guess what, proved them wrong.

So the proof is in the pudding, put a tester on it, if it puts out 3000W, call me. Their not that far away, so I'll just do that and then I’ll know!

PS. Was good to see you guys at the show!! Too bad one of the contactors went out so we didn’t get our ride but hay the in depth show and tell on the boat as just as well considering there was no wind anyway! As well as getting the first brochure and DVD was great! Nicholas, USA Lagoon, said she did 6 kts on no wind with one motor. Not bag dad!! Steve M.

" Has anybody commenting here ever been to DBK's factory and seen the product?"

That's the problem. Nobody outside that company seems to have seen the product. And the "he said, she said" stuff I posted was what I received in emails from DBK. Its not hearsay.

If it worked as they claim it works, I would buy a million bucks worth of their stock.

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we could build our own Banana Republic, if we would all just stop stealing the bananas..
Canibul   11-10-2006, 19:41

Back to the DBK thing, just for a moment, please. I would think there are some sailors in the San Diego area who are interested in DBK's claims that they could essentially put these panels on their boats and run all the electric appliances they could fit onboard.

perhaps someone in the SoCal area could drop by their place and ask to see the system working. Preferably someone who knows a VOM from a coppertop...?Canibul

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we could build our own Banana Republic, if we would all just stop stealing the bananas..
12-10-2006, 13:41 Canibul

Steve,
Thanks for the info. I read everything I could find on those panels, I am trying to run an entire three bedroom house. The specs are very attractive.

My problem is understanding, or in fact even getting a description of, what makes this panel produce this incredible efficiency. Their output claim is greater than the amount of solar energy present on that surface, I am reading.
If they amplify it from 700 watts to 3,000 watts, and there's no other power source than the sun, I am having a problem understanding the physics of that. How are they putting out more power than they are receiving?
I think its a simple question.

As another customer for them, do YOU understand the process they are using ? If its patented, or even patent pending, they are protected. Their description of their process will be available from the patent office anyhow. for free.

I really really DO want to believe them. I am an easy sell, actually. But I try to be a very well informed consumer, as well.

Wanna see my personal ultrasonic bug repeller collection?

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we could build our own Banana Republic, if we would all just stop stealing the bananas..
Canibul 04-10-2006, 19:54