An Adaptively Self-Cooled High Efficiency Solar Panel
World Maker Faire 2016
MAKERS
Tiasha Joardar
Tiasha is an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, majoring in Business and Computer Science. She holds a 1st place Intel ISEF award, as well as the IEEE Presidents' and National Merit Scholarships.
Kuntal Joardar
Kuntal has a degree in Electrical Engineering and resides in the Dallas, Texas area. His professional interests are in the area of modeling of semiconductor devices. His hobbies include designing and building electronic circuits and photography.
A novel method is demonstrated that increases the power of a solar panel by feeding a portion of its own energy to an integrated, microcontroller driven, thermoelectric unit which keeps the panel temperature steady under varying ambient conditions.
What inspired you to make this project?:
Actually the origins of this project lie in an earlier attempt to develop a small thermoelectric air-conditioner that would be able to operate on solar power. That turned out to be extremely challenging but along the way it occurred to me that perhaps thermoelectrics could instead be used to make solar panels rum more efficiently. This project is an outcome of pursuing that idea. Of course behind all this is the science fair program in our school district which encouraged and motivated me and my friends to pursue science and technology endeavors from an early age.
