JP7312882B2 - Information display device - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an information display device for displaying information consisting of images, videos and characters.

Information display devices that display guidance, advertisements, etc. by digital technology are also called digital signage, and are now widely used. In recent years, many information display devices using solar power have been proposed for power saving.

For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a display system in which the arrangement of solar cells is devised so as to efficiently receive sunlight. Further, Patent Document 2 proposes a display device to which a technique for converting natural energy such as sunlight and wind power into electric power is applied.

JP 2012-255848 A JP 2016-095369 A

However, in Patent Literatures 1 and 2 described above, the solar cell panel is used to convert sunlight into electric power and take it out. For this reason, the power generation efficiency depends only on the photoelectric conversion efficiency of the solar cell panel itself, and it has not been easy to further improve the photovoltaic power generation efficiency. Moreover, in Patent Document 2, wind power generation is used in addition to photovoltaic power generation, but this requires a separate wind power generation unit, which complicates the structure.

Therefore, the present inventor focused on the fact that in an information display device such as a digital signage, the display itself needs to emit light like an organic EL (electroluminescence), or it needs to be illuminated by a backlight like a liquid crystal display.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide an information display device that enables power saving by utilizing light existing in the environment without waste.

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for displaying information including characters, images and/or video, comprising: a display window (11) provided on the front of the apparatus; an information display section (109) emitting internal light representing the information; a photovoltaic device (108) provided between the display window (11) and the information display section (109) having a configuration in which a first photovoltaic panel (104) and a second photovoltaic panel (105) are stacked; a power supply system (200) that charges a battery (202) using the photovoltaic power of a panel (104) and the photovoltaic power of the second photovoltaic panel (105) and supplies power to at least the information display unit (109), wherein external light enters through the display window (11) from the first photovoltaic panel (104) side of the photovoltaic device (108), and the internal light enters from the second photovoltaic panel (105) side. The first photovoltaic panel (104) generates photovoltaic power from the external light and the internal light transmitted through the second photovoltaic panel (105), and the second photovoltaic panel (105) generates photovoltaic power from the internal light and the external light transmitted through the first photovoltaic panel (104). As a result, the first photovoltaic panel photoelectrically converts the external light and the internal light transmitted through the second photovoltaic panel, and at the same time the second photovoltaic panel photoelectrically converts the internal light and the external light transmitted through the first photovoltaic panel. In this way, light incident from both sides of the photovoltaic device can be used for power generation, and power consumption can be further reduced with a simple configuration.
The first photovoltaic panel (104) can be composed of a transparent or translucent first solar panel, and the second photovoltaic panel (105) can be composed of a concentrating panel (105a) and a second solar panel (105b) provided on the edge surface of the concentrating panel. As a result, the first solar cell panel receives the first light from the entire surface, thereby enabling efficient photoelectric conversion, and the second solar cell panel (105b) can perform photoelectric conversion in a desired wavelength range.
The condensing panel 105a may be a transparent plate in which a fluorescent dye that absorbs the light of the predetermined wavelength range and re-emits the light of the predetermined wavelength range is dispersed in a transparent medium. As a result, light in a predetermined wavelength range can be efficiently collected and used for power generation.
The second solar panel (105b) may be a solar panel that does not transmit light. For example, the second solar panel is a substrate mounted solar panel.
An illumination light guide path (103) surrounding the display window (11) and an illumination light source (103a) for passing light through the light guide path (103) are further provided, and the light guide path (103) illuminates the display window (11) by turning on the illumination light source (103a) with power from the power supply system (200), and the illumination light is converted into electric power by the photovoltaic device (108). This allows some of the consumed power to be recovered by the photovoltaic device, allowing further power savings.

As described above, according to the present invention, the power consumption of the information display device can be reduced by using the light present in the environment without waste.

1 is a perspective view showing an example of the appearance of an information display device according to an embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional configuration diagram of an information display device according to this embodiment; FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an optical harvesting module according to this embodiment; FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional configuration diagram of the optical harvesting module shown in FIG. 3; FIG. FIG. 4 is a plan view (A) of a photovoltaic panel in the light harvesting module shown in FIG. 3 and a cross-sectional view (B) of the edge portion taken along the line AA. 2 is a block diagram showing the internal circuit configuration of the information display device according to this embodiment; FIG.

<Overview of Embodiment>
According to an embodiment of the present invention, a transparent photovoltaic device that obtains photovoltaic power is arranged between a display window provided on the front surface of an information display device and an internal light source, and the photovoltaic device receives external light and internal light to generate power. The photovoltaic device comprises a stack of a first photovoltaic panel and a second photovoltaic panel. For example, when the information display device is installed outdoors, the first photovoltaic panel photoelectrically converts the outdoor light, and further photoelectrically converts the internal light transmitted through the second photovoltaic panel. At the same time, the second photovoltaic panel performs photoelectric conversion of internal light, and further performs photoelectric conversion of outdoor light transmitted through the first photovoltaic panel.

As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention, the photovoltaic device can use the light incident from the outside and the internal light for power generation, and the power generation efficiency can be increased by using the light existing in the environment with a simple configuration without waste. In particular, information can be displayed without relying on a commercial power source even when a power failure occurs during a disaster. BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. However, the constituent elements described in the following embodiments are merely examples, and the technical scope of the present invention is not limited to them.

<One embodiment>
As illustrated in FIG. 1, an information display device 1 according to one embodiment of the present invention is built in a box-shaped case 10, and a display window 11 is an area surrounded by a bezel 101 attached to the front surface of the case 10. Information such as advertisements and guidance can be visually recognized through the display window 11 .

As illustrated in FIG. 2, an optical harvesting module 100, a power supply system 200, and a controller 300, which will be described later, are mounted in the case 10. As shown in FIG. The optical harvesting module 100 will be described below with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3. FIG.

<Optical harvesting module>
As exemplified in FIG. 3, the light harvesting module 100 includes a bezel 101, a cover glass 102, a light guide path 103 for illumination, a first photovoltaic panel 104, a second photovoltaic panel 105, a liquid crystal panel 106, and a surface light source 107 as an internal light source in order from the display window 11 on the front surface of the case 10 toward the inside, and is fixed to the inner wall of the case 10. The first photovoltaic panel 104 and the second photovoltaic panel 105 constitute a photovoltaic device 108 , and the liquid crystal panel 106 and surface light source 107 constitute an information display section 109 .

The term "photovoltaic panel" refers to a panel composed of an element that converts incident light into electric power by the photovoltaic effect. In this embodiment, an example of the first photovoltaic panel is a transparent or translucent solar cell panel, and an example of the second photovoltaic panel is a solar cell panel using a concentrating panel. The term "solar cell" is not limited to sunlight, but generally refers to elements that generate power using indoor light such as lighting.

A cover glass 102, an illumination light guide path 103, and an illumination light source 103a are fitted in the bezel 101 (see FIG. 2). The light guide path 103 is made of transparent resin and formed in a shape along the bezel 101 . An illumination light source 103a such as a light emitting diode (LED) is provided at the lower center of the light guide path 103, and the illumination light travels in opposite directions, so that the light guide path 103 as a whole emits light evenly, and the inside of the display window 11 can be illuminated along the frame of the bezel 101.

A first photovoltaic panel 104 and a second photovoltaic panel 105 are arranged so as to fit within the frame of a light guide path 103, a liquid crystal panel 106 is arranged behind the second photovoltaic panel 105, and a surface light source 107 as a backlight of the liquid crystal panel 106 is arranged in sequence. The liquid crystal panel 106 is a transmissive liquid crystal display, and is illuminated from behind by a surface light source 107 so that the information displayed on the liquid crystal panel 106 can be viewed through the display window 11 . As the surface light source 107, a light emitting diode (LED) provided with an optical system that spreads the illumination light evenly over the entire surface, or an organic electroluminescence (EL) light source as it is can be used. Further, since the organic EL itself emits light, it can be used as the information display section 109 as it is.

In FIG. 4 , external light passes through the cover glass 102 and is photoelectrically converted by the first photovoltaic panel 104 , and the passing light is photoelectrically converted by the second photovoltaic panel 105 . When the internal light from the surface light source 107 is transmitted through the liquid crystal panel 106 , it is photoelectrically converted by the second photovoltaic panel 105 , and the transmitted light is photoelectrically converted by the first photovoltaic panel 104 . The internal light from the surface light source 107 passes through the liquid crystal panel 106 and the photovoltaic device 108, so that the image on the liquid crystal panel 106 can be visually recognized from the outside.

<Photovoltaic device>
Hereinafter, the first photovoltaic panel 104 and the second photovoltaic panel 105 that constitute the photovoltaic device 108 in this embodiment will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 4 to 6. FIG.

As shown in FIG. 4, the photovoltaic device 108 has a configuration in which a first photovoltaic panel 104 and a second photovoltaic panel 105 are stacked. The first photovoltaic panel 104 and the second photovoltaic panel 105 may be configured by stacking separate panels separated by a certain space, or may be configured by stacking the first photovoltaic panel 104 and the second photovoltaic panel 105 on a transparent substrate.

For example, the first photovoltaic panel 104 may be a transparent or translucent solar panel, such as thin-film or organic thin-film solar films.

As illustrated in FIG. 5, the second photovoltaic panel 105 consists of a condensing panel 105a and a solar cell panel 105b provided on its edge surface. In this embodiment, a solar cell panel 105b is provided on each long side of a rectangular condensing panel 105a. The condensing panel 105a is a transparent plate in which a fluorescent dye is uniformly dispersed in a transparent medium such as acrylic, and is also called an LSC (Luminescent Solar Concentrator). Particular wavelengths of the incident light are trapped by the fluorescent dye and reemitted. The re-emitted specific wavelength light repeats total reflection on the main surface of the condensing panel 105a and converges on the edge. Light not trapped by the fluorescent dye becomes transmitted light.

The light emitted from the edge is converted into electric energy by the solar cell panel 105b. The solar cell panel 105b can be composed of a solar cell array formed on a semiconductor substrate that does not transmit light, and is preferably a substrate-mounted solar cell panel that can photoelectrically convert not only light emitted from the edge but also light of a wide range of wavelengths. Alternatively, the solar panel 105b may have high efficiency in the wavelength range that is trapped and reemitted by the fluorescent dye. Such a solar panel 105b may be at least one or more solar cells, solar modules or solar arrays. Moreover, since the solar cell panel 105b does not need to be transparent, it may be a semiconductor-based photoelectric conversion element.

As illustrated in FIG. 5B, in the condensing panel 105a of the present embodiment, the edge area of the edge portion 105c facing the solar cell panel 105b is increased. As a result, the ratio of the edge area to the incident area of the condensing panel 105 can be increased to increase the condensing ratio. In this embodiment, the solar cell panels 105b are provided on each of the two long sides of the condensing panel 105a, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the solar cell panels 105b may be provided on each of the four sides.

The first photovoltaic panel 104 and the condensing panel 105a of the second photovoltaic panel 105 may be covered with a transparent protective cover. In this case, the refractive index of the transparent protective cover is selected between the refractive index of the transparent material of the light-concentrating panel 105a and the above-described total internal reflection within the light-concentrating panel 105a. As another configuration, a configuration in which the first photovoltaic panel 104 and the light collecting panel 105a are laminated on the front and back surfaces of a transparent plate of acrylic or the like or a transparent polarizing plate may be used.

Returning to FIG. 4, the first photovoltaic panel 104 converts external light incident from the outside into electrical energy, and further converts internal light transmitted through the condensing panel 105a into electrical energy, thereby outputting photovoltaic power V1. Further, the solar cell panel 105b of the second photovoltaic panel 105 converts the internal light incident on the condensing panel 105a into electrical energy, and further converts the external light transmitted through the first photovoltaic panel 104 into electrical energy, thereby outputting photovoltaic power V2.

Furthermore, even when the surface light source 107 is turned off, the display window 11 can be illuminated by the light guide path 103 by causing the illumination light source 103a to emit light. Since only the illumination light source 103a is caused to emit light, power consumption can be extremely reduced. In particular, even when installed at night or in a dark place, the inside of the display window 11 of the information display device 1 can be illuminated, and necessary information can be displayed. Even in such a case, the light from the light guide path 103 is incident on the photovoltaic device 108, so that photovoltaic force can be obtained.

<Power supply system>
As illustrated in FIG. 6 , power system 200 has power converter 201 , battery 202 and power supply circuit 203 . The power converter 201 converts the photovoltaic powers V1 and V2 respectively input from the first photovoltaic panel 104 and the second photovoltaic panel 105 into a required output voltage using a DC-DC converter or the like, and charges the battery 202 . In addition to charging the battery 202 , the power supply circuit 203 supplies power from the battery 202 and/or the commercial power supply to the control unit 300 that drives and controls the illumination light source 103 a , the surface light source 107 and the liquid crystal panel 106 . The control unit 300 controls the liquid crystal panel 106 and the surface light source 107 according to the stored image data or the image data received via the network to display information such as advertisements or guidance.

<Action>
In FIG. 6, when the information display device 1 installed outdoors is driven by the battery 202, the first photovoltaic panel 104 receives external light including sunlight and internal light transmitted from the surface light source 107 through the liquid crystal panel 106 and the second photovoltaic panel 105, and outputs photovoltaic power V1. In addition, the second photovoltaic panel 105 receives internal light, which is light from the surface light source 107 transmitted through the liquid crystal panel 106, and external light, which is transmitted through the first photovoltaic panel 104, and outputs photovoltaic power V2. Since these photovoltaic powers V1 and V2 can charge the battery 202, some of the power consumption of the battery 202 can be recovered by the photovoltaic device 108. FIG. Further, even when only the illumination light source 103a emits light and the light guide path 103 illuminates the display window 11, the photovoltaic device 108 can recover some of the power consumption.

<effect>
As described above, according to one embodiment of the present invention, the transparent photovoltaic device 108 that obtains photovoltaic force is arranged between the front surface of the information display device 1 and the internal surface light source 107, and the photovoltaic device 108 receives external light and internal light from the surface light source 107 to generate electricity. In particular, the photovoltaic device 108 has a structure in which the first photovoltaic panel 104 and the second photovoltaic panel 105 are stacked. Therefore, when external light and internal light enter the photovoltaic device 108 from both sides, the first photovoltaic panel 104 mainly performs photoelectric conversion of the external light, and further performs photoelectric conversion of the internal light transmitted through the second photovoltaic panel 105. At the same time, the second photovoltaic panel 105 mainly performs photoelectric conversion of internal light, and further performs photoelectric conversion of external light transmitted through the first photovoltaic panel 104 . In this way, light incident from both sides of the photovoltaic device 108 can be used for power generation, and power generation efficiency can be improved with a simple configuration. As described above, the information display device 1 according to the present embodiment enables efficient photovoltaic power generation, thereby further saving power consumption.

A light guide path 103 for illumination is provided between the display window 11 of the information display device 1 and the photovoltaic device 108 so as to surround the periphery of the photovoltaic device 108, and the interior of the display window 11 can be illuminated by passing the illumination light from the illumination light source 103a through the light guide path 103. Illumination from the light guide path 103 makes display information on the liquid crystal panel 106 visible. Furthermore, the illumination light of the light guide path 103 can be incident on the first and second photovoltaic panels 104 and 105 to generate photovoltaic power, thereby further reducing power consumption.

1 information display device 10 case 11 display window 100 light harvesting module 101 bezel 102 cover glass 103 light guide path 103a illumination light source 104 first photovoltaic panel 105 second photovoltaic panel 105a condensing panel 105b solar cell panel 105c edge portion 106 liquid crystal panel 107 surface light source 108 photovoltaic device 109 information display portion 200 power supply system 201 Power converter 202 Battery 203 Power supply circuit 300 Control unit

Claims (4)

A device for displaying information including text, images and/or video,
a display window provided on the front of the device;
an information display unit that emits internal light representing the information;
a photovoltaic device having a configuration in which a first photovoltaic panel comprising a first transparent or translucent solar cell panel provided between the display window and the information display section and provided on the display window side , and a second photovoltaic panel comprising a condensing panel provided on the information display section side and a second photovoltaic panel provided so as to face an edge portion of the condensing panel;
a power supply system that charges a battery using the photovoltaic power of the first photovoltaic panel and the photovoltaic power of the second photovoltaic panel and supplies power to at least the information display unit;
The light-condensing panel provided on the information display part side is a transparent plate, the transparent plate has a transparent medium in which a fluorescent dye that absorbs light in a predetermined wavelength region and re-emits light in the predetermined wavelength region is dispersed, and the area of the edge portion of the transparent plate corresponding to the second solar cell panel is formed to be larger than the cross-sectional area of the main surface of the transparent plate;
The area of the surface of the second solar cell panel facing the edge portion is formed to be substantially the same area as the area of the edge portion,
External light is incident through the display window from the first photovoltaic panel side of the photovoltaic device, and internal light is incident from the second photovoltaic panel side,
the first photovoltaic panel performs photovoltaic power generation from the external light and the internal light transmitted through the second photovoltaic panel;
the second photovoltaic panel performs photovoltaic power generation from the internal light and the external light transmitted through the first photovoltaic panel;
The second photovoltaic panel is covered with a transparent protective cover selected so that the light in the predetermined wavelength range repeats total reflection on the main surface of the condensing panel.
An information display device characterized by: The second solar panel has a higher power generation efficiency for light in the predetermined wavelength range than other wavelength ranges,
2. The information display device according to claim 1, wherein: wherein the second solar panel is a solar panel that does not transmit light;
3. An information display device according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that: further comprising a light guide path for illumination surrounding the display window, and an illumination light source for passing light through the light guide path;
By turning on the illumination light source with power from the power supply system, the light guide path illuminates the inside of the display window, and the illumination light is converted into electric power by the photovoltaic device.
The information display device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that:

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