Kirigami, art of cutting paper to improve the efficiency of solar panels
Researchers at the University of Michigan propose a new technique for solar panels to follow the sun. The technique is called Kirigami because it is based on Japanese art of cutting paper. The work has been published in the journal Nature Communications.
The trajectory of the Sun in the sky allows to improve the efficiency of solar panels around 40%. However, there are currently motorized, heavy, bulky and expensive systems with capacity to do so, which are not suitable for their location on roofs and vehicles, for example. What is proposed now is like a simple panel from the outside and move the inner solar cells to keep their surfaces always as perpendicular as possible to sunlight.
The engineers of the University of Michigan were together with an expert artist in quirigamy from the same university in the search for new designs of solar panels. The artist taught them models made of paper and the engineers repeated them with solar cells. They tested it but saw that the simplest model was the most effective. It is, basically, a series of interconnected bands, and just pulling the ends of the lot is enough to change the orientation of the bands.
They are still in the design phase, but researchers have estimated that the same efficiency can be achieved as motorized systems. The techniques consider a great potential and can be a way to encompass solar energy.
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