Am I missing something?
He used the same amount of collectors on both units.
"It had the same type and number of PV solar panels as the tree design, and the same peak voltage."
Based on that if one is storing and producing more energy, therefore it's more efficient.
Even if the mount is a bit more complicated and therefore more expensive you should still see a return to offset that slight increase.
I think the main advantage, is he discovered how to gain more efficiency in a collector by building it up vertically, rather than the horizontal construction we are using now. This means we could place more collectors/sq ft
Not to mention the fact that his design somewhat negates the need for a collector to rotate. Even if rotating the collector for maximum absorption. His design allows for more collectors per rotation apparatus.
Sorry that's a breakthrough.
No.
The article says the average power generated over a given day, with the same number of cells is greater. BUT he used normal cells, I presume wired normally, without peak power tracking electronics. When a cell is shaded, or subjected to sub-optimal lighting conditions, it rapidly drops in efficiency. What his "tree" is doing is ensuring, at any given time, the number of cells with optimal lighting offsets the number with low or none, and since the drop-off is exponential for mis-aligned cells with no peak power tracking, he achieved the results he showed. I would be willing to bet that a non-tracking, planar panel, equipped with the appropriate electronics would perform much closer, if not better (per cell average) than the tree.
Going vertical just increases the shadow zone, meaning you still get the same amount of collector per unit shadowed ground, whether they are low tracking panels, tall panels, fixed angled panels, or his tree.
I am telling you, flat out, a two-axis tracking panel would obliterate the tree, regardless of whether they had PPT electronics or not.
Like I said before, it's not a breakthrough (except for proving why trees evolved the way they did) in solar energy, and it's the nature of his experiment that yielded the "significant" results, rather than the results being significant across all comparisons. Fact is, the reason the tree works is it positions cells at a variety of orientations, meaning (as I stated before) it actually "wastes" cells to ensure some are always optimally exposed (just like a real tree). In real life, you wouldn't do this as it maximizes the cost of the expensive parts, in order to reduce the cost of the mount. Additionally, if you simply mounted the cells on a curved plate, with it's axis of curvature perpendicular to the suns apparent path (rather than a flat plate perpendicular to the suns apparent path) I would bet that would not only (without PPT electronics) outperform the flat plate, but also the tree, as it is the analytical maximum exposure...and it would be low profile, not vertical.
This is good science, but not an engineering breakthrough--too bad people don't recognize that the first is sufficient to show the child's potential, and sadly require the latter to be true in order to do so.
