Unlike conventional PV racking systems, the solar panels installed on Lumenarx face downwards. This avoids common issues faced by conventional PV such as weather damage and glare. However, Lumenarx uses an angled mirror system to collect and concentrate incoming sunlight back onto the solar panels.
“This is going to change how the photovoltaics industry thinks about racking systems” said Samuel Reid, cofounder, President and CEO of Geometric Energy Corporation. “We believe this is a compelling announcement for forward-looking licensees and partners that might take advantage of this new technology.”
Lumenarx has a competitive payback period and increased power output over both flat fixed-angle and dual-axis tracking PV cells. The design is full scalable and has applications for residential, commercial, utility or off-grid installations. It can be used in conjunction with a dual-axis solar tracker to that it is pointed directly at the sun for the entire day.
The design was optimised using Geometric Energy’s ray-tracing software, which uses mathematical principles to simulate incoming light rays and draw out their paths as the rays reflect off the mirrors and onto the solar panels.
“The integration of solar geometry in the software allows for accurate results for any location on earth, for any day of the year” added German Luna Patiarroy, a mathematician at Geometric Energy. “It also allows for the extrapolation from flat solar irradiance data to other setups, with or without tracking systems. We couldn’t find any software that did this, so we developed it ourselves.”
Samuel Reid and Dyrell Chapman demonstrated and showcased Lumenarx at the Solar Canada Conference in Toronto, which took place this week on December 5-6, 2016. Exclusive and non-exclusive licensing opportunities are currently available in a wide variety of industries and markets.
Geometric Energy Corporation (GEC) is a research and development start-up focusing on sustainable distributed energy resource systems. GEC was incorporated in the summer of 2015 in with the mission to commercialise sustainable energy technologies. The company opened company offices in Calgary, Canada in 2016. GEC has two primary research divisions, a photovoltaic systems engineering division and an electrochemical R&D division.
Lumenarx is the company’s first patent-pending, publicly announced invention.
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