Definately will not work solar cells are very inefficiant in the means of converting energy I think If I recall the ones nasa uses that cost tons of cas only have like 22-25% efficantcy now you couple that with conversion... Good luck but I will say there is a couple of companies working on 3rd gen solar that will charge your cell phone off of your home lighting which would be benificial cause your light is normally on several hours of the day as it is...

Free charge for that cell phone or MP3 player not bad imho...

People tend to shun the 3rd gen solar cause it uses organic cells but it is unlike the traditional organic solar cells because the active ingrediant used is dry and does not need to be wet putting to rest the biggest issues with homemade organic panels and even pre third gen production models as they used to have to use a liquid form of some chemical errr I forget the exact name but anyone could make these but... not worth it as the contents evaporate and freeze in the winter you end up with broken panels and so on...

But have a look... There is a couple of companies using this new printed solar technology and one company even reports a possible 15% efficiantcy which is good for just about any solar not to mention production on a massive scale they figure could bring prices down to 10cents a watt according to interviews and articles I have read this would be phenomenal.

I think the names are konarka and nanosolar and there are a couple of other companies out of china I believe as well... These are the people who will bring to market this for home use... As usual it will be industry first!  LAME! that doesnt help the econemy at all just helps the rich get richer...

But I guess let the folks with the money pay for the R&D I say then we could scab it up at near bottom line pricing.

-infringer-

OK, here is all I know about solar cells, specifically, one of the first solar cells ever built.  I have in my possession from my Dad, who used to work at Bell Labs, one of the original solar cells produced to power the telestar, the world's first telecommunications satellite.  Now, this is quite old and I am sure is no where near the 30-40% efficient rating of modern cells but, from playing with it even as a little kid and now, I have found that I can increase the output from the cell by using a magnifying glass.  This cell is hooked up to a mA meter (the way my Dad made it) and the output doubles with the use of even a crude magnifying lens.  This cell also responds very well to the spectrum put out by a simple single LED.

Ever since I was a kid I never understood why installations of solar panels did not use at least a Fresnel lens type of arrangement.  I also found that I could take mirrors and angle them to collect even more light and between this and the magnifying lens, I can seriously peg the mA meter.  This is just a single, old design cell from the 50's.

Anyway, I liked the suggestion that someone made about finding out what freqs of the light spectrum the cells respond to and then, possibly making other cells that respond to the other freqs.  I believe there is much more power to be had here than is being used today.  Just my thoughts.

Bill

    Solar arrays are good until the sun ducks behind a cloud or below the treeline.
Now infrared energy stored in water molecular resonance is there all the time.  50 percent of the suns emissions at the magnetosphere is at infrared wavelengths.  Why this huge scource of energy is neglected is beyond me.  It isn't closed loop until we turn on a lightbulb and start heating the atmosphere again.  How many tetrawatt hours can be converted from just a 1/2 mile of gulfstream thermal energy flow?

@Pyrodini

     Quantom physics can describe energy in two ways.  Either a photon packet or an electromagnetic wave.  In either case they are the accepted energy currency of the known Universe. 

     Water absorbs infrared energy and converts it to lower frequency wavelengths depending on the temperature of the water.   This is still a high frequency to catch on an antennae.  The antennae on a photovoltaic is actually as small as the holes and electrons created by the dopants.  This is a mighty small antennae.  Infrared might be better collected by thermal agitation of an ionized gas and concentration of the ionized gas to raise the temperature of the gas by use of magnetic or electrostatic concentrators.  Something like a compressorless heat pump.  Nano antennaes and circuits made to resonate at such small wavelengths are doable but technically difficult.  Another technique may be the reflection of lower frequency wavelengths through the water which would mix with the infrared waves and a special circuit to demodulate the infrared.