A copper plate bolted to the back of a solar panel catches the 80 percent of sunlight that never becomes electricity

By Luis Reyes – autoNotion

Solar panels are at their worst on exactly the day you want them at their best. Heat makes a panel’s voltage sag, so a blistering August afternoon can turn out less power than a cool, bright morning in April. Most of the industry treats that heat as a loss to be shed and forgotten.

A group at Stanford bolted a copper tube cold plate to the back of a panel and pointed the heat somewhere useful instead. The panel put out 59.3% more power, because the plate was cooling it.