EEVblog 1575 – TIPA: The World’s Most Efficient Solar Panel – BUSTED

TIPA: The World’s Most Efficient Solar Panel raised £293,000 on Indiegogo and Kickstarter, AND also got a UK government innovation grant for £560,000!
They claim 3 times the power output of regular solar panels by using mirrors to reflect the light back on the solar cells (TIPA: Total Internal Photonic Absorption). They claim 80% of the light that hits a solar panel is reflected!

And when challeged by a solar cell researcher from the University of Freiburg on the claims of 80% reflectance and why they don’t independently test, there is a hirarious word salad response!
https://borchertlab.com/juliane/

Forum: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1575-tipa-the-worlds-most-efficient-solar-panel-busted/

The owner has been busy: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/koV1FIQV3bcKEHlZu4H5_6vAEDE/appointments
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/tipa-the-world-s-most-efficient-solar-panel#/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tipa/tipa-total-internal-photonic-absorption/description
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=105277
https://yellowstud.io/research
https://alt-things.com/about-us-3/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley%E2%80%93Queisser_limit
https://www.nrel.gov/pv/reflectance-spectroscopy.html
https://www.youtube.com/@UClilz8CXhUFBRrdAUenRKWw

00:00 – Another Dodgy Crowd Funder
01:00 – £560,000 UK Government Innovation Grant!
01:42 – Let’s watch the video!
06:22 – How it works
06:58 – We can beat the Shockley Queisser Limit!
09:17 – $2BN valuation!
09:28 – The prototypes
10:15 – How they screwed up
12:06 – Reflective coatings and solar panel efficiency tradeoff
13:26 – Some actual reflection measurements using reflectance spectroscopy
15:18 – There ain’t no free lunch. The claims are BS
16:52 – The reflection/absorption efficiency tradeoff
17:54 – Let’s see what else they have developed at Yellow Studio!
19:21 – Electon Spin Battery Charging using magnetic forces!
19:55 – Solar Electromagnetic Energy Power Battery System using liquid nitrogen!
21:11 – Their other Kickstarter projects
24:14 – Hilarious word salad response to a solar cell researcher calling them out!
28:49 – Conclusion

Podcast: Download