New technology idea...
 

Let's noodle my new idea together.

I want to make a massively interlaced solar power supply that can be used to help feed green energy to a region (town, city, etc). Finding the available surface area for such a large number of solar cells is hard, if you need to buy land. So, I thought about possible surfaces that are distributed around a community going unused right now.

The backs of cell phones!

I want to make a cell phone case that has a solar panel on it, perhaps 50x70mm? Even basic 50x50mm cheap-o Chinese panels, which are readily available online in bulk. Attach them to a phone case, have the cases distributed around a community, and viola, a wide spiderweb of power sources. Use the phone's cellular connection to transmit the accumulated power to a central accumulator station, which can then feed the power back into the local grid, contributing green energy for everyone in the town.

50x50mm panels can produce 2V, 160mA power which is 320mW continuous. Running 12 hours per day is 3800mwh total! If there were 50,000 people in a town, that would means 190,000wh of energy each day for that town, all for FREE!
The average house consumes around 30Kwh per day, so we could power 6.5 homes for free in that town, just by using the accumulated power from 50,000 cell phone cases.

Game changer.

Help me finalize this idea!

Neat idea. First you want to file a utility patent with the words "cell phone case containing solar charging system" and have it include the integrated case as well as slip on accessory slip covers. Cover both options, though that require two separate filings. Be aware there are already a hundred previous art work examples of stand-alone solar chargers that a phone or battery pack can plug into, but I've never heard of it integrated. It makes sense for those that leave it on the table.

"Use the phone's cellular connection to transmit the accumulated power to a central accumulator station" is where my knowledge is limited as to if this is even technologically possible or feasible. The power required to transmit might be more than that gained with a small panel. And then why not industrial panels on a pole right at the station. Many options to consider which have been thought of before. Even having roads made of panels.

The required "land" is already there... virtually everywhere, is typically dark and already absorbing solar energy (heat) in a counterproductive way.... use it. It dwarfs yer idea both in area and feasibility imo.

I can't take credit for this idea ... just pointing out what seems intuitively obvious to my dawg...

Woof, woof, roof :D

It early and I haven't given this nearly as much thought (none ;)) as you have tho'.

My dawg could be wrong and just wants to go outside.... need more coffee....

Er... Don't most folks carry their cel phone in pocket or purse?

:confused:

Just put the panels on the roof of every commercial building and cover the parking lots with them.


Best
Les

Audi used to have a solar panel in the sunroof for the purpose of turning on the interior blower fan to lower the interior temp on hot days when the car was parked. Always thought that was innovative…but didn’t last long.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_EV-1

The Saab EV-1, or Saab 900 Turbo EV-1, was developed by Saab in 1985 as a fully functional and roadworthy future concept car, EV-1 stands for ´Experimental Vehicle One´.

It was a wedge shaped 2 + 2 sports coupé body style based on the Saab 900 Turbo 16v. The body was steel and the roof all glass. The design was made by Björn Envall, and the metal work was done by Leif Mellberg included features such as a solar powered interior cooling fan, with 66 solar cells mounted in the glass roof.

This device cooled the car when parked in sunlight. The front and rear bumpers (fenders) were designed to absorb impacts and revert to their original shape. They were made of Aramid fibre (Twaron or Kevlar) reinforced composites. The side doors featured carbon-fibre side impact protection.

I always thought there is a lot of wasted real estate on telephone poles . Wires on top and bare to the ground . Fill that space with solar panels . Feed the generated power into the power lines directly above .

You mean that half mile of parking lot with no shade anywhere which is 120deg?
Naw. Terrible idea.

The government loves mandates, especially "green" ones, so maybe they should force automakers to use solar panels as the roof in every vehicle they manufacture, then further require that all energy produced is for the greater good and is to be shared with the energy network. There's a lot more real estate to be had by covering vehicles with this planet-saving technology than on the back of an in-the-pocket-anyway cell phone.

_

I would do baseball cap brims before cell phone cases. Bonus is you could recharge your embedded chip just by walking outside.

When in use the back of a CP is pointing down. Also I don't understand wireless electricity transfer. Neither did Nicolas Tesla.

Or, solar-cell cable that could be strung from existing power poles.

You can send power wirelessly?
My iphone does not like being in the sun and shuts down.

I assume you’re looking for cheap and readily available surfaces that are constantly exposed to the sun and uses cheap available panels. It would be great it if also had access to the power grid.

How about roofs?

Cell sized panels wouldn’t even keep the phone charged.

I hope my sarcasometer is correctly functioning on this

There's nothing new under the sun...

Most of the schools around here have panels up on their parking lots.

there is somewhere around 85 million dogs in the US. Taking out dobermans, rottweilers and pit bulls, lets say 75 million dogs.

That's a lot of tails wagging. Harness that energy and we are energy independent. My dog even as a lab rott mix with no tail, wiggled enough when I came home that would provide enough e- to heat my home for a week I think.

I agree. Distributed solar collection is the way to go. The scale of trying to do it with cell phones is waaayyyyy to small.

Overheat the device/battery

Im pretty sure you are joking on this, but if you invent this part of the tech, you will be the first person to be a self made trillionaire in under a year.

Tesla suggested this a century ago.

Sure thing, but doesnt make it easy or safe to do at reasonable power levels and distances.

Really it is exactly what the sun is already doing transmitting ultra high power EM radiation over long distances

Sure, we're going to have to include a nationwide campaign to teach people how to stretch backwards and hold the phones kinda overhead so the cases are pointed at the Sun, but that's just simple propaganda, pretty simple.


See, THIS is why Shaun is a business owner and I am not. I come up with this great idea and he immediately trumps it with two BETTER ideas! Bastard...

Look, if it turns out that cellular transmission of power isn't the right option, then I have a backup plan. The 3800 mwh produced each day is just about the same power storage as a rechargeable AA battery. So, we send out say 3 batteries with each case. End of day, you take out the charged battery, put in the uncharged one, and then drive to the town center where we'll have a drop box for the filled batteries. One box where you put the full ones, and one box full of empty ones. You'll always have a battery charging, one empty, and a spare just in case. Then we just need a facility with 50,000 AA battery clips that's plugged into the main grid.


I'm actually surprised, none of you noticed the REAL problem here. I'm only looking at 12 hours of continuous charging, but in fact there are 24 hours available in the day, so why am I missing out of 50% potential? Turns out that during the 12 hours of nighttime here in the US, there is 12 hours of perfect daylight on the other side of the globe, in a region where they don't use electricity. So, we supply Nepal, Tibet, and Southwestern China with the same cell phone cases, and they can collect 12 MORE hours of power for us, for free! Now we're powering almost 13 houses in each town of 50,000 people!

Panels don't produce that way. To produce max power it has to be when the sun is very high in the sky and the panel is perfectly oriented. This is why some of the places use tracking systems.

A 1 meter x 2 meter panel produces about 450 Watts, or about 225 Watts per sq meter, when it is perfectly pointed at the sun and when the sun is around noon. And no clouds.

So you will need people to wear a hat with a tracking system and keep the cell phone up there and they need to stay outside in the sun all day long, every day.

50x70mm = 0.0035 sq meters = 0.7875 Watts

Plug that into PV Watts and see what it will produce in your Zipcode for a year.

or this. only posting because I love SG

<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZHkoAWs-BQk" title="This hat has a secret function..." frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The main problem with parking lots becoming covered with solar panels is that those usually require access to various tall trucks, delivery, etc.... Or worse yet, someone towing a camper or driving a jacked up truck on huge tires that doesn't know how tall their crap is.

THe cost to fix things when someone takes one out would suck. But otherwise, it's a great idea. I'd love a shaded parking spot, and having more solar power would be nice.

What sort of environmental impact does the creation of solar panels cause? I know that EVs are a bit notorious due to the various metals required for batteries, motors, electronics. How are solar cells for that sort of thing?

Yep. If it's out being used, the screen is facing up and the back is covered by a hand or whatever surface the device is laying on.