Singapore University Scientists Design ‘Smart’ Device to Harvest Daylight

From this article on solar energy:  A team of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) researchers has designed a ‘smart’ device to harvest daylight and relay it to underground spaces, reducing the need to draw on traditional energy sources for lighting.

No.  Here’s the problem: you’re not going to get more energy per day out of any device than is incident upon it.

In the United States, the solar energy incident on 1 square meter is about 6 kWhrs/day.  This, of course, is an average; we get more in summer, and more in lower latitudes.   But no matter what you do with that energy, you’re certainly not going to be able to “harvest” any more per day than that average of 6 kWhrs.

A ball with a radius 0.56 meters will yield the equivalent of 1 square meter for the sun to hit, so setting such a ball out in the sun will provide, assuming 100% efficiency (which is impossible) 6 kWhrs, about 70 cents worth per day.