How do solar concentrators work?
A solar concentrator uses lenses, called Fresnel lenses, which take a large area of sunlight and direct it towards a specific spot by bending the rays of light and focusing them. Some people use the same principle when they use a magnifying lens to focus the Sun’s rays on a pile of kindling or paper to start fires. How a Fresnel lens works. Note: The Drawing is not to scale—the lenses and cells are both much smaller than the Sun! Fresnel lenses are shaped like a dart board, with concentric rings of prisms around a lens that’s a magnifying glass. All of these features let them focus scattered light from the Sun into a tight beam. A Fresnel lens from the front. Solar concentrators put one of these lenses on top of every solar cell. This makes much more focused light come to each solar cell, making the cells vastly more efficient. Concentrators work best when there is a single source of light and the concentrator can be pointed right at it. This is ideal in space, where the Sun is a sin
