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Genesys currently has a press release on their home page discussing a new US patent:

Genesys, LLC has demonstrated a working prototype generating up to 40 Kilowatts from one standard solar panel with certified third-party validation along with being granted a US Patent

They go on to claim their future product

will be able to produce 20KW of power, 24 hours a day, using only one standard 200-watt solar panel.

Is this claim plausible?

Don Branson
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    Red flags? Conservation of energy. If there's only 200W in and 20kW out, where did the extra 19.8kW come from? – Kevin Jun 08 '18 at 22:43
  • @Kevin - so, my thought, too, but it's not my field. If you want to offer up an answer for voting, I'd appreciate that. – Don Branson Jun 08 '18 at 22:53
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    @kevin Your point is valid, but technically 200w would be the [output](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_panel) of the solar panel, not the input. – JBentley Jun 09 '18 at 02:36
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    I used California Business Search to find a manager in charge of Genesys, LLC called Ronny Bar-Gadda. (No link, because it contains personal details and is too close to doxxing.) I looked him up on Linked In, and found he claims to be the CEO. I looked up patents with him as an inventor granted this year, and found [US9985299B1 - Simultaneous generation of electricity and chemicals using a renewable primary energy source](https://patents.google.com/patent/US9985299B1). I can't be 100% sure, but I assume that's the one they are talking about. – Oddthinking Jun 09 '18 at 04:28
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    Could the answer be "wait a couple weeks"? (200W*200 hours of sunlight) Granted, the claims are absurd technobabble and that would be confusing watts and watt-hours, but I've heard stupider things coming out of any number of marketing departments... Maybe it's 40KWh of stored electricity from a 200W solar panel that's gotten 200 hours of sunlight. – HopelessN00b Jun 09 '18 at 04:38
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    @HopelessN00b no - the elapsed time does not matter. A Watt is a unit of power, not energy. – Martin James Jun 09 '18 at 13:03
  • @JBentley Output of the solar panel (conventional technology) = input to the rest of the system (magic box). – Kevin Jun 09 '18 at 20:25
  • @Oddthinking yeah that sounds pretty much like it. I have to say it is written in a way that you can catch somebody off guard. That page probably popped up because the patent was granted at 29th May 2018. Sounds like the main power source is not the solar panel but the interaction of "the sun or something" with the electron beam (which is generated with the power from the solar panel). I'm not saying it sounds plausible to do what is described... – Arsenal Jun 09 '18 at 23:20
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    @MartinJames I think the suggestion is that it is meant to be at kilowatt *hour*, not a kilowatt. A kilowatt hour is a common term in the US, as it is how electricity is billed. So the numbers might be correct but the units wrong. And kilowatt hours have the same base units as energy. However, reading the source doesn't support that interpretation. They are claiming that their device added to a 200 watt solar panel produces 20 kW or more. So it would produce 20 kilowatt hours every hour. – Brythan Jun 09 '18 at 23:23
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    @Kevin Yes I realise that, but in the case of a solar panel that *outputs* 200W, it is at least theoretical *conceivable* that a device could improve the efficiency of the panel in some way. Whereas if the solar panel receives an *input* of 200W (i.e. the maximum total power of sunlight that can hit the panel is 200W) then there is nothing even conceivable that can increase that. Obviously that doesn't in any way make this claim plausible. – JBentley Jun 10 '18 at 00:10
  • I believe, based on the patent, that the solar panel is not used as a conventional solar panel (pass thru device). The solar panel is only used as a voltage source. – Black Swan Jun 10 '18 at 01:20
  • They say one device can amplify 200W to 40kW. With 200 more devices you could amplify *that* 40kW to 8MW. With 40000 more devices you could have 8MW => 1.6GW, which is almost the world's total electricity consumption. All that from 200W solar panel? Totally plausible. – psmith Jun 10 '18 at 03:31
  • Page 17 of [this PDF](http://www.genesys.co/images/pdf/Genesys_Self-Charging%20Car.pdf) tells it all: the 'inventor' does not know the difference between **instantaneous** power and **continuous** power, and seems to have based an entire company on the mistaken belief that you can generate more power if you divide the incoming energy in shorter pulses. – Sanchises Jun 11 '18 at 07:49
  • @Sanchises Something tells me it is unlikely it involved any kind of mistake! – JBentley Jun 11 '18 at 08:23
  • @JBentley [Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor) Don't underestimate the convictions held by crackpots. – Sanchises Jun 11 '18 at 08:30
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    @psmith: You've forgotten 3 orders of magnitude. 1.6GW is the output of one or two nuke reactors. The global yearly consumption is around [20000TWh](https://yearbook.enerdata.net/electricity/electricity-domestic-consumption-data.html), for an average of 2280GW. – Eric Duminil Jun 11 '18 at 08:59
  • @MartinJames: What HopelesssN00b was saying is that a constant 40kW output isn't possible from a constant 200W input. It's possible to store those 200W and deliver 40kW 0.5% of the time, though. – Eric Duminil Jun 11 '18 at 09:03
  • If something is using lenses or mirrors to direct ~ x100 the area of light onto the panel a 200 W panel (rate for typical direct daylight) could have more light hitting it and generate much more power output. That would be assuming that nothing in the panel will fry operating at that much higher rate. Solar concentrators work in just this way. Now if the described system uses something like that and some clever form or storage maybe it would work but a lot of it sounds like magic. – TafT Jun 11 '18 at 09:29
  • @TafT: You're correct. CPV modules are rated differently though, so 200Wp shouldn't be called 200Wp anymore. – Eric Duminil Jun 11 '18 at 10:22
  • @MartinJames I'm well aware. But confusing Watts and Watt hours is extremely common. – HopelessN00b Jun 11 '18 at 21:02
  • I managed to read their articles to the end, and it smacked too close to a few hobby science projects I saw in the past, and I figured what they are doing. The "RET" system is a boiler-based solution that uses both the energy from the sun plus the energy of the solar panel to heat water, produce steam use that steam to produce energy and break the part of the water into hydrogen and oxygen. Of course, once you do the proper math it doesn't even come close to being able to match their numbers, – T. Sar Jun 13 '18 at 14:24

3 Answers3

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Red flags:

  1. As Kevin points out, 20kW from a 200W panel is PFM (Pure Frelling Magic).
  2. Significant portions of the press release are dedicated to how strong the patent is. No patent number is given.
  3. The landing page of the site is the press release. The banner for the site is "Breaking News", making the entire site effectively a giant press release.
  4. Unprofessional grammar in the site with massive unbroken paragraphs addressing multiple topics. The site reeks of the work of a single person, giving the impression that the whole thing is a one man operation. For such a critical industry, it is unlikely that a single man working out of his home could beat the huge investors and R&D firms across the energy industry to such a massive advancement.
  5. The science claims are specious at best. terminology is confused and mixed up. I'll address this in more detail below.
  6. He repeatedly claims that a certified third party has validated the claims made, though the party is never identified.

Specious claims:

High electrical powers are generated using the eRET’s super convective current generator that relies on a reservoir of high energy charges generated from the conversion of solar photons to electrons.

This is not how solar panels work, or really any energy generation technique. The photon passes energy to an already existing electron, elevating its energy state.

The generated electrons form a high-speed current whose energy carrying capability far exceeds anything an equivalent copper wire can achieve.

I don't know enough about electricity to know if 20kW is too much for a standard cable, but from some poking around, it appears it is. But this seems irrelevant - you can't use the power if you can't get it into your house, so at some point it has to be down-stepped to a usable voltage/amperage. And since copper wire is used for power transmission, not power storage, this statement seems like a useless distinction.

As a by-product of the accelerating electrons, electromagnetic radiation in the form of waves are created which can be tailored to selective frequencies in order to perform different functions such as telecommunications or chemistry.

I suppose you could characterize raising an electron's energy state (exciting it) as accelerating it as it moves faster. However, even if the electron were not excited, EM waves would still be generated. And yes, you can use different frequencies of this radiation to perform different work. But I'm pretty sure you expend the electrons in applying this energy to work, and this is no different than any existing process that converts electricity to work. I'm honestly not sure what is being claimed here, but it does not seem novel.

The electromagnetic wave that is produced can be manipulated to crack water vapor because water vapor possesses certain frequencies that absorb energy to a high degree, leading to the breakdown to hydrogen and oxygen.

As you can do with any electricity. Again, not sure what here is novel.

Using the eRET, nearly all commercial chemicals from petroleum or other fossil sources can be produced using hydrogen, which is a product of the eRET, and carbon dioxide.

To translate: using electricity, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, you can create large numbers of useful chemicals. This is how they are made now.

The eRET employs its high speed, extremely low resistance, high energy electron current

Resistance is not a property of the current, but the medium the current is travelling through. Also, speed is not really a useful property of a current, and is again more a property imparted by the medium - that is, electrons flow through a medium at a given speed based on environment, not properties of the current itself.

The eRET generates electric currents using a cascade process rather than the induction process commonly used to generate an electric current in copper wires.

Cascade process, like nuclear fission? Also, at some point, in order to use the energy, that current has to utilize copper wires, so I'm not sure what value this has here. He's comparing either an energy generator or energy storage device to an energy transmission device - its unclear which.

In fact, that is the problem that underlies much of what is on the site. Is this a power generator or a power storage device? Is it both? If it is, what part of it is he talking about in each claim? Does it also integrate some power transmission technology? Because all of the claims comparing it to copper wire seem to indicate as such. So do you have to replace all of your home's wiring to use this?

The eRET converts the flow of the low energy electrons supplied from the solar panel into high energy electrons. In the transformation process, where some of the energy is used, enough high energy electrons are left to fulfill the requirements for high power generation. The speed of the electrons has been clocked at 20% of the speed of light.

Looking at the accompanying picture, it seems that the eRET takes power from the solar panel, some water (from any source, so it doesn't even have to be pure), and performs magic to create these high energy electrons. It appears to do so by breaking the hydrogen out from the water, which takes power (it doesn't generate it). Yet his system claims to not only produce hydrogen, but actually amplify the power received from the panel, thereby having the cake and eating it too. This, again, is PFM.

Also, they clocked the electrons? I think it's easier to just do the math. As you pump energy into an electron, it goes faster. Hydrogen at room temperature has electrons at a low energy level where they travel at around 1% of the speed of light. At 220,00eV they travel at around .9c. .2c means thy have somewhere between 10 and 11 KeV I think, based on this calculator. So, he's excited electrons. I'm not sure if this is a lot compared to typical energy generation, but again it doesn't seem relevant as the numbers are meaningless to practical application (powering your house) without significant math to convert electron speed into eV, then into wattage.

This could go on, but I've wasted way more time than I should on this bunk.

Community
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  • How do they expect to make money out of it? They would sell devices and hope not all customers will sue them to get their money back, after they realize it doesn't work? – vsz Jun 09 '18 at 08:14
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    Also, a 20kW cable is entirely feasible and can be bought off the shelf at any electrical supply store. That's about 80A at 240V, and I believe most houses in the US have at least that large a service. Larger commercial buildings can be several hundred kilowatts, or even megawatts. – SomeoneSomewhereSupportsMonica Jun 09 '18 at 09:02
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    @vsz - They're looking for "investors". – Daniel R Hicks Jun 09 '18 at 11:06
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    "it is unlikely that a single man working out of his home could beat the huge investors and R&D firms" - In fairness to the single man, huge investors and R&D firms would generally know better than trying to develop technologies that give them 20kW of output from 200W of input _in the first place_. He probably has the entire field of 'conservation-of-energy-violating electrical production methods' largely to himself. :) – aroth Jun 09 '18 at 13:05
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    On the subject of violating conservation of energy and the unspecified patent, it might be worth noting that the USPTO has violation of conservation of energy as one of its “directly to the garbage” criteria for patent applications. – KRyan Jun 09 '18 at 16:14
  • My house has a rated input power of 65kW (3 phase 230V) – PlasmaHH Jun 09 '18 at 17:01
  • `it is unlikely that a single man` - who's name is not Nikola * – hanshenrik Jun 09 '18 at 17:58
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    _"He probably has the entire field of 'conservation-of-energy-violating electrical production methods' largely to himself. :) "_ You've obviously never read keelynet. :) – Jamie Hanrahan Jun 09 '18 at 20:08
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    For the record, if you *could* somehow make it more efficient, you could [theoretically get up to 1kW](https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar/Pages/What%20Is%20Solar%20Energy/Sun's%20Energy.aspx) out of a typical 200W solar panel. But any more than that and you really are violating conservation of energy. – Harry Johnston Jun 09 '18 at 22:06
  • Unless I'm mistaken, the electrons of an electric current don't actually move from one end of the circuit to the other; they vibrate in place. This doesn't negate the claims made about "speed" (for a generous interpretation of that word), but it does seem to go counter to your rebuttal of them. – user Jun 10 '18 at 12:02
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    @MichaelKjörling, alternating current vibrates in place. Direct current (what a solar panel produces) actually has the electrons move, but they move *far* slower than the electrical impulses that actually carry the power. – Mark Jun 10 '18 at 22:24
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    @HarryJohnston Well, a solar panel is not a closed system - you could imagine it producing more energy than it receives in sunlight, but only if that energy comes from somewhere else and down an energy gradient. For example, a solar panel powering a heat pump would be more efficient at warming stuff than if you connected it to a radiator. Of course, in such a case, you *better* be clear about where that extra "work" comes from. In fact, the "boost" of 200 W -> 40 kW is so ridiculous it's clearly meant to only hook in people who have no idea (just like a typical scam e-mail uses bad grammar). – Luaan Jun 11 '18 at 05:48
  • If the system uses `conversion of solar photons to electrons` then it breaks the fundamental law of conservation of charge, unless the system also produces a positively charged particle (such as a positron). Antimatter production has its own problems and I'm not sure solar photons have enough energy for pair production anyway, you need a MeV, ie a Gamma ray. – Qwerky Jun 11 '18 at 09:11
  • @HarryJohnston: The maximum achievable efficiency is even [lower than that](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_efficiency_limit). For the kind of solar panel Genesys is talking about, no more than 31% of the incoming solar energy can be converted to electricity, even with perfect components. – Eric Duminil Jun 11 '18 at 10:17
  • @Eric, the premise as I understand it is that the solar panel is being modified to work in a different way than it was designed to. That's highly implausible, but *if* it were true the 31% limit wouldn't apply, though I assume the 85% limit would. But we don't need to worry about that sort of detail, since the claim is 4000% anyway, so [100% is an adequate upper bound](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3712). – Harry Johnston Jun 11 '18 at 20:09
  • @HarryJohnston: Oh, they just changed the molecular structure of the solar cell? I guess it makes it more plausible, then. :) You're right, let's allow 100% as a theoretical limit, it's still lower than the required 50000%. – Eric Duminil Jun 11 '18 at 20:24
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One red flag that's pretty clear in the diagram on the site is the hydrogen storage aspect.

solar 24 hour power

A 200 watt solar panel isn't going to power an entire home all day. Adding a device to split the water into hydrogen (and oxygen), eRET(?) requires additional electricity. Simultaneous hydrogen storage while powering the entire house is an absurdity.

The eRET employs its high speed, extremely low resistance, high energy electron current to generate very high powers. The eRET generates electric currents using a cascade process rather than the induction process commonly used to generate an electric current in copper wires.

"high energy electron current" is more gibberish. "generates electric currents using a cascade process rather than..." but no detailed information about the alleged cascade process. Curiously, the piece goes on to say that the electrons are created from the sun, perhaps that's the phony cascade process.

A certified third party has validated Genesys’ claims of generating an electric current with immeasurably small resistance, removing a significant barrier to higher power generation.

The third party has apparently bypassed ordinary physics. Unless one is discussing superconductors, there is always measurable resistance. Perhaps they are using equipment that is not sufficiently sensitive, disqualifying the results.

The eRET converts the flow of the low energy electrons supplied from the solar panel into high energy electrons. In the transformation process, where some of the energy is used, enough high energy electrons are left to fulfill the requirements for high power generation. The speed of the electrons has been clocked at 20% of the speed of light.

Another impressive yet unbelievable claim. According to one source, the electron around the hydrogen atom travels at one percent of the speed of light. How do their engineers manage to increase the speed of other element's electrons to such a great extent?

Another source suggests that electrons in a copper wire with a current of 10 amperes will travel at an approximate speed of one-quarter of a millimeter per second. That fifteen millimeters per minute is a long way from being twenty percent of the speed of light.

It gets better when you begin to calculate in the hydrogen aspect of the funny science. This source quoting Steve Hench, Former Scientific Staff Member, Los Alamos National Laboratory, says the following:

It takes about 50 kiloWatt hours (kWh) to electrolyze 9 kg of water into 1 kg of H2 and 8 kg of O2.

A steady 150 Watts of power (ignoring daylight cycles) would be able to produce about 0.003 kg (3 grams) of H2 per hour with an STP volume of about 0.0337 cubic meters.

It is important to note that for an electrolytic process that the output voltage of the solar cell (or array) should be properly matched to the electrolyzer cell stack.

We can ignore the minor difference between a 200 watt power source and the above-referenced 150 watt power source, as the figures are small enough to present the absurdity of the concept of "eRET."

a 200 watt panel, assuming (incorrectly) 20 percent efficiency running for an hour would generate substantially less than 10 cc of hydrogen. This also presumes that the solar panel is not powering the entire home all day.

This borders on the Brown's gas generator system that many people believe.

Brythan
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    Don't forget: "...will be able to generate direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC) without the need for an inverter." -- which is also impossible. – Brock Adams Jun 09 '18 at 01:53
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    Your quora source is full of mistakes. 0.003kg of H2 per hour is correct, but 0.003kg is 3 grams, not 0.3. And 3 grams of hydrogen is 33 Liters (33000cc), not 33cc. So 20% of 200W would generate over 8000cc per hour. Not that it changes anything, the whole claim is insane anyway. – ElderBug Jun 09 '18 at 04:10
  • Doesn't the solar panel output rating already account for the efficiency of the panel? Not that it really changes the conclusion; as far as I can tell the average American household uses about 1.2 kW of power (~10500 kWh/year), so powering a house with a single 200 W panel is clearly ridiculous. – Kyle Jun 09 '18 at 06:33
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    @Kyle You are right, a 200W solar panel produces 200W of electricity at direct sunlight. The input energy of said direct sunlight is about 1000 W - 1300 W depending on the efficiency of the panel. This is how solar panels are rated, so yes, the solar panel output rating already takes into account the efficiency of the panel. – juhist Jun 09 '18 at 12:08
  • One more thing to do. What if they found some dumb way to get the solar panel up to carnot efficiency? Hint: it's still too low. – Joshua Jun 09 '18 at 14:32
  • @Joshua but then they'd be selling (shares in) the solar panel, not claiming they can use a standard one. [Maximum power point tracking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_power_point_tracking) is well-established for the output side and is probably required to get that 200W in practice – Chris H Jun 09 '18 at 19:47
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40kW out of a 200 Wp solar panel?

200 Wp (Watt-peak) is the nominal power of the solar panel.

It means that the solar panel produces 200W of power when the module has a temperature of 25°C and is under an irradiance of 1000W/m². See "standard test conditions" in IEC 60904-3.

At night, a 200 Wp panel produces exactly 0W and during a cool, sunny day, the panel can produce a bit more than 200 W if it has the right inclination.

With mirrors or lenses, it's possible to concentrate the sunlight to increase the power output per module area. This method might help boost the overall efficiency by a few % but it surely cannot multiply the solar panel output by 200.

One possible way to get 40kW out of a 200 Wp solar cell would be to charge a supercapacitor and deliver 40kW pulses every time the supercap is charged. There would be losses and the total energy delivered by the supercap would be lower than the energy delivered by the solar panel.

This system would be useless but it means that the answer to the title question is "Yes, at least in theory".

20kW all year long out of a 200 Wp solar panel?

The supercap described above didn't violate any law of physics. But the system described by Genesys surely does.

20kW all year long is :

20kW * 24h/day * 365day/year = 175 200 kWh / year

PVWatts Calculator is a tool provided by NREL to estimate the output of a photovoltaic system.

According to this tool, a 0.2kWp system in a very sunny location (e.g. Phoenix, AZ) would produce around 340kWh / year.

Whatever their system is, Genesys is lying by a factor of at least 500.

Eric Duminil
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    [You could concentrate by 200x](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrator_photovoltaics), but you'd need >200x the area of their "standard panel" (with tracking mirrors if it's to work for more than a few minutes per day). Instead concentrator systems use *much* more efficient, and *much* more expensive cells – Chris H Jun 09 '18 at 19:51
  • @ChrisH: Indeed, that's why I wrote "power output per module area". It's possible to achieve 40% efficiency : still quite far from the 20 000% needed :) – Eric Duminil Jun 09 '18 at 19:57
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    Well if they chopped it up into its individual modules... they'd still be lying (like all but the dumbest "inventors" of perpetual motion machines and the like) – Chris H Jun 09 '18 at 20:03
  • @ChrisH: Here's another PV scam if you're interested : http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/spherical-sun-power-generator/ – Eric Duminil Jun 09 '18 at 20:06
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    A ball lens. A very big ball lens. That would be nice for starting fires, perhaps we should start with the "inventor's" notes. Unfortunately as a university scientist I do get sent stuff like this quite a lot. It livens things up when they're genuine [green ink letters](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gre5.htm) and not emails – Chris H Jun 09 '18 at 20:11