13 year old uses Fibonacci sequence to improve solar efficiency

Solar panels are great as they help to generate power in place of using electricity, but unfortunately solar panels require proper positioning and good weather conditions to reach maximum efficiency, and for some reason it took a 13 year old boy to figure out something so painstakingly obvious that manages to increase the efficiency of solar panels.

13 year old Aidan Dwyer while on a winter hike in the Catskills, was mesmerized by the tree-branch patterns and decided to look into it and discovered that these patterns were created through the Fibonacci sequence (basically adding the previous number to the next, i.e. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc).

He then put 2 and 2 together and realized that if plants required sunlight photosynthesis, why can’t the same concept be applied to solar panels that were designed around the Fibonacci sequence, much like the tree-branch pattern. He then created his own tree-like stand and attached small solar panels in the Fibonacci pattern and compared it against a regular flat panel solar collector.

The results? His design (or rather nature’s design) yielded 50% more efficiency than a regular flat panel solar collector. He has earned himself a provisional US patent and apparently is much sought after by “entities” who are eager to utilize his creation. Perhaps in the future we will start seeing solar “groves”, which we can imagine are more space efficient as well.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Green
Tags: nature, Solar