Will a lens increase solar energy?

Question

If I had 100 mirrors reflecting sunlight onto a 1 foot lens, would the focused beam of light coming out of the lens have more useable energy output(electricity) than the actual sunlight?

Answer 1

Yes and no. More solar energy is useable, but only because you are providing more area to collect the sun's rays. Basically, you are getting all the energy from (say) 5 square meters off the mirrors into a smaller area (maybe 1 square meter), so the same amount of energy is concentrated into a smaller area. On the other hand, only a certain amount of energy escapes the sun at any one time, and no amount of mirrors can collect more energy than that.

Answer 2

David is correct.  

This idea you have is actually used in the west on "sun farms".

Here is a piece about the isea...

http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth...

-Fred

Answer 3

Definitely the energy 'flux' will be more. It is up to the efficiency of the converter which will determine the usability.