cheap solar cell Archives – The Green Optimistic

The New Copper Zinc Tin Sulfide (CZTS) Solar Cells – Cheaper and More Efficient

Mike Sandru — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:59:02 +0000

Just when we were getting used to silicon solar cells, efficient – true, but so expensive, here comes a new discovery of solar cells that could turn the industry upside down. We’re talking about CZTS solar cells, which stands for Copper Zinc Tin Sulfide. What makes these so great: they “make this inexpensive.” This was […]

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New Organic Solar Cell Efficiency Record Obtained by Heliatek

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:22:18 +0000

A new efficiency record for organic photovoltaic cells has been reached by Heliatek, for the third time in a row. The German company created a cheap solar cell that can convert up to 9.8 percent of the incoming light into electricity. Heliatek’s new solar cell is made from oligomers, and differs from polymer and dye-sensitized […]

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New Quantum Dot-Enabled Solar Cells Doubling Output Current With Same Lighting Conditions

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:05:28 +0000

Cost-efficient and energy-efficient solar cells could be right around the corner. These so-called "third-generation" photovoltaics begin to emerge nowadays and dismiss a theory stated in 1961 by William Shockley and Hans Queisser, who showed that there is a theoretical 31 percent limitation in what regards the maximum efficiency for a single solar cell.

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New Organic Framework for More Efficient Graetzel Solar Cells Discovered

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:50:29 +0000

Scientists from Cornell University have unveiled a basic process that could give solar cells a boost in efficiency and a drop in price. The process employs molecules typically used in coloring blue jeans and in ink dyes. Their purpose if to build an organic framework that could serve as a building block for cheaper and flexible solar cells.

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New Layering Technology Makes Ultra-Efficient Solar Cells Available Not Only for Satellites

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:37:43 +0000

Silicon is hardly the most efficient material for use in solar cells, but it is used because it's cheaper to make silicon solar cells. Gallium arsenide, for example, is a much more efficient semiconductor than silicon, but has a high manufacturing cost. Now, a team of scientists from the University of Illionis, devised a technology that builds gallium arsenide solar cells in a much cheaper fashion, making them more cost-efficient.

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Chemically-Etched Black Silicon Proves Efficient Solar Cells Can Be Cheaper

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 13:28:40 +0000

While SiOnyx, a MA-based startup, uses lasers to create black silicon and improve the efficiency and price of solar cells, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) discovered a simple chemical treatment that could replace the otherwise expensive antireflective solar cell coatings currently used in the industry.

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Solarmer's Organic Solar Cells Getting Real Hopes to Enter Mainstream Market

Ovidiu Sandru — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:14:39 +0000

A CA-based company, Solarmer Energy, is now collaborating with professor Luping Yu, from the University of Chicago, to build the best cheapest flexible polymer solar cell ever, one that will be able to reach 10 percent efficiency.

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Saw-Free Manufacturing Process Makes Solar Cells 80% Cheaper

Ovidiu Sandru — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:22:15 +0000

1366 Technologies, a company based in Lexington, MA, shows how a new manufacturing process can make silicon solar cells 80 percent cheaper. The company dreams that within 10 years they will be able to improve the technology so as the solar cells built by them to compete with coal in price.

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Amazing Experiment Creates 3D Self-Folding Solar Cell Around Water Droplet

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:23:45 +0000

University of Illinois researchers discovered a method to manufacture three-dimensional, single-crystalline silicon solar cells from thin films. They used photolithography and a process driven by capillary interaction that made the micron-thick film to bend around itself.

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Optical Fiber Solar Cells: Cheap, Flexible, Six Times More Efficient

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:51:04 +0000

Georgia Tech researchers have developed a system that uses dye-sensitized (GrÃƒÆ’¤tzel) solar cells wrapped around optical fibers to increase their overall efficiency, since it's known GrÃƒÆ’¤tzel cells are not very efficient. The fiber solar cells they obtained are 6 times more efficient than zinc-oxide solar cells having the same area.

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DIY Solar Cell from Tea and Donuts

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:22:59 +0000

The Holy Grail of energy has been, is, and will be the solar power. Numerous solutions of converting solar power have existed along the centuries, and people have always used the Sun to power things up, except for the last hundred years or so - that's the main reason we all got into troubles with mother nature.

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Nicole Kuepper`s Inkjet-Printed Solar Cells: The World's Cheapest

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:17:36 +0000

Nicole Kuepper, a 23 year-old Australian scientist has invented a method of making cheap solar cells out of simple materials, that any DIY-er could find in his home.

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