Posts Tagged solar cell

Graphene and Monolayers For More Efficient Solar Cells

Posted by Benji Jerew in Experiments, Solar Power on May 3, 2013

With all the talk about nanomaterials making up more efficient solar cells, most of the focus has been on graphene and its unique properties. It’s easy to forget that other elements could possibly be manufactured similarly. It stands to reason that if you can make one element into a monolayer, then you should be able [...]

Atwater’s Light-Splitting Solar Cell Could Be 50% Efficient

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Solar Power on April 24, 2013

The ability to dissociate light into fundamental colors could make today’s solar panels 50 percent efficient. If you compare this figure to the 20 percent efficiency found in many solar cells on the market, that’s a game-changer. Harry Atwater, a professor of materials science and applied physics at Caltech thinks he has the solution. The [...]

Solar Modules Have Great Efficiency Potential, NREL Director Says

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on April 1, 2013

All solar modules and solar cells have the potential to get a boost in efficiency, especially thin-film solar and concentrated photovoltaics. This is according to Dan Arvizu, the director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), who presented his observations during the 2013 International Renewable Energy Conference in Abu Dhabi. Although thin-film solar panels have [...]

Recyclable Organic Solar Cell Hits New Efficiency Record at 2.7%

Posted by Benji Jerew in Recycling, Solar Power on March 26, 2013

Photovoltaic organic solar cells have the potential to be truly green, but often their manufacturing processes are not so green. Petroleum- and silicon-based solar cells can be bad for the environment and nearly impossible to recycle. One possible solution to creating a truly green solar cell could be to use natural materials. On the other [...]

Solar Power Conversion Efficiency Limits Broken, Nanowires Win

Posted by Benji Jerew in Solar Power on March 25, 2013

With the development of nanotechnology, researchers using nanowires in solar cells are finding that solar cell efficiency limits may be higher than they previously thought possible. Current commercial silicon-based solar cell efficiency is less than 15%, which means that more than 85% of the sun’s energy is lost to heat and reflection. Modern theory places [...]

BioSolar’s Solar Panel Backsheet Made With Bio-Oil, Not Petroleum

Posted by Benji Jerew in Solar Power on March 14, 2013

Typically, manufacturers apply a protective backsheet made of plastic, but BioSolar’s solar panel bio-oil backsheet has no petroleum component. The semiconductor photovoltaic solar panel needs some measure of protection as well as electrical insulation. For this reason, petroleum-based plastic works well as a backsheet for pretty much all solar panels that are manufactured today. Up [...]

Atomic Layer Deposition Increases Efficiency of Nighttime Solar Cells

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on February 28, 2013

A promising new process, known as Atomic Layer Deposition, could potentially improve existing solar energy systems. The new technique has been invented by Brian Willis, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Connecticut and the former director of UConn’s Chemical Engineering Program. He explored the so called rectennas, or nano-antennas, [...]

Coloured, Transparent Solar Cells on Buildings Convert 12% of Incoming Sun Energy

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on February 15, 2013

Oxford Photovoltaics received £2m grant to develop colourful, transparent solar cells, which can be placed on building facades, making the whole building capable to produce clean power. The dyed glass is very close to being commercialized. According to Kevin Arthur, the company’s founder and CEO, there will not be a need to attach PV cells. [...]

Low-Temp Meltable Alloy Increases Solar Cell Efficiency

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on February 11, 2013

The field of solar power and photovoltaic cells has developed enormously over the past decade, providing opportunities for even greater innovations. One of these is presented in the latest issue of Advanced Materials, a team from the Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore. The researchers proposed using low temperature meltable alloys to [...]

New Dye for Organic Solar Cell Hits Record 11.9% Efficiency

Posted by Benji Jerew in Solar Power on February 1, 2013

Solar cells may be the cleanest energy source available, but they have one thing working against them, which is efficiency. Sure, there are some who have expanses of horizontal and vertical real-estate on which to put hundreds of square feet of solar cells, but they could be better. If a 10%-efficiency solar array on the [...]

Exotic Form of Silicon Improves Solar Cell Efficiency

Posted by Leigh Kim in Solar Power on January 29, 2013

Researchers have discovered that an exotic form of silicon may improve solar cell efficiency. This predicted improvement using a structure of silicon called silicon BC8 was detailed in the January edition of the journal Physical Review Letters, and is based upon computer simulations by researchers at the University of California Davis and in Hungary. Scientists rejected [...]

New Efficient Solar Cell Design Inspired by Evolution

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on January 28, 2013

Researchers at Northwestern University published a paper entitled “Highly Efficient Light-Trapping Structure Design Inspired by Natural Evolution,” in the journal Nature earlier this month, showing that single-crystal silicon solar cells do not have to be as expensive as they currently are. The solution is hidden in the new geometric pattern of the scattering layer, which [...]

New Multi-junction Solar Cell Breaks Efficiency Records

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on January 15, 2013

The 50 percent conversion efficiency barrier in multi-junction photovoltaic development has the potential to be broken with the novel triple-junction solar cell proposed by researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory-the Electronics Technology and Science Division, in collaboration with the Imperial College London and MicroLink Devices, Inc., Niles, Ill.. According to Robert Walters, Ph.D., NRL [...]

Solar Frontier Establishes New Record in Thin Film Efficiency: 19.7%

Posted by Benji Jerew in Solar Power on January 13, 2013

We’ve been covering a lot of advancements in the area of photovoltaic [PV] solar power, from how long solar panels last, decades that is, to breaking the efficiency barrier, which has stood at 18.6% for the last ten years. Some prototype panels have boasted higher efficiency values, up to 44% in the case of a [...]

Layered Quantum Dots Lead to More Efficient Solar Cells

Posted by Leigh Kim in Solar Power on January 12, 2013

Two researchers at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Pralay K. Santra and Professor Prashant V. Kamat, have discovered that a solar cell that is comprised of up to three layers of quantum dots. Each layer they discovered is tuned to a different part of the solar spectrum and has an efficiency that is [...]