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I'll repeat for the reflexive downvoters: Solar panels will work in moonlight if and only if you can make fire from moonlight with a magnifying glass. The ans

• DenisM 8y ago
  You're not addressing the essential part of my comment. Let me clarify: I put in place 1000 solar panels and aim them at the sun thus procuring 200kw of power. Next I use it to power an arc welder, producing 10,000 C of heat. Therefore I have used a 6,000C sun to produce 10,000C on earth. Would a similar setup work with the moon? I don't know. That was not my point, my point was that it certainly is possible to produce higher temperature at the target than it was at source.
  • URSpider94 8y ago
    Monroe’s explanation only applies to optical systems, ie reflecting and focusing light, which is a thermodynamically reversible process (yes, even with dust. Dust doesn’t make the lens thermodynamically irreversible, it just scatters and absorbs some of the light so it doesn’t reach the lens. The irreversibility is a property of the lens). Solar panels are converting light energy into electrical energy, which is not an irreversible process - it creates entropy, and therefore the rules are different.
  • twodave 8y ago
    Sure it is, just not in real-time. The lense fails because there is no storage mechanism.