Genius 13-year-old Irish American brings solar panels to the next level - VIDEO

Revolutionary idea the shape of things to come?

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Aidan Dwyer

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Steve Job's showed early promise and the rest is history. So too does 13 year old Irish American schoolboy Aidan Dwyer.

In fact, at an age when his peers are just beginning to have their first crushes, Dwyer is already revolutionizing the solar power industry.

The New York schoolboy has hit upon new way of arranging solar panels, which according to a report in The Daily Mail is 20 to 30 per cent more efficient than the current standard design.

'It doesn’t collect dirt rain and snow as much as the flat panels, and I think it looks a lot nicer,' Dwyer said in an interview with CNN this week.

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It was looking at a tree that gave him the idea, he says.

'One day I was just walking through the woods and I noticed that the tree branches collect sunlight by going up into the air. And I thought: 'Maybe if we put solar panels on the ends of the branches it would collect a lot of sunlight.'

'My design is like a tree. But instead of having leaves it has solar panels at the ends.'

Reaction from the scientific community has been swift and amazed. Dwyer has received letters from professors and famous schools requesting he work with them.

It hasn't all been plain sailing though, some critics have attempted to debunk his work, with one skeptic claiming he is using the wrong measurements.

Despite the pointed criticism, Dwyer was honored by the American Museum of Natural History as one of its top Young Naturalists this year.

CNN's report on Aidan Dwyer:

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