Black Silicon Solar Cell Hits 18.2% Efficiency, Should Help to Reduce Costs

ScienceRocks

Democrat all the way!
Mar 16, 2010
59,455
6,792
1,900
The Good insane United states of America
Black Silicon Solar Cell Hits 18.2% Efficiency, Should Help to Reduce Costs

October 13, 2012 By Nathan 1 Comment
Black-silicon solar cells with 18.2% efficiency have been created by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). These don’t need extra anti-reflection layers (like typical solar cells do), which should help to significantly lower the cost of solar energy.

The specially designed nanostructured surface ensures that the light-generated electricity is still collectable in an efficient way from the solar cell, while still conferring the inherent advantages of a ‘black silicon‘ material.

“The researchers made nano-islands of silver on a silicon wafer and immersed it briefly in liquids to make billions of nano-sized holes in each square-inch of the silicon wafer surface,”an NREL news release states. “The holes and silicon walls are smaller than the light wavelengths hitting them, so the light doesn’t recognize any sudden change in density at the surface and, thus, don’t reflect back into the atmosphere as wasted energy. The researchers controlled the nanoshapes and the chemical composition of the surface to reach record solar cell efficiencies for this ‘black silicon’ material.”

Regularly, solar cell manufacturers need to add an additional anti-reflection layer, sometimes even more than one, to their cells; this raises the manufacturing costs considerably.

Black Silicon Solar Cell Hits 18.2% Efficiency, Should Help to Reduce Costs - CleanTechnica
 
http://www.tayloredge.com/reference/Electronics/Photonics/HighEfficiencySolarCells.pdf

ABSTRACT:

This paper reports recent progress by SunPower Corporation to commercialize silicon solar cells with
efficiency greater than 20%. Large-area (149cm2) cells with efficiency as high as 21.5% (confirmed by NREL) have been made on a 1 MW/yr pilot line, and a production line with 25 MW/yr capacity has been constructed. Using a back-contact cell design and novel manufacturing techniques, cells with efficiency over 21% were produced with techniques suitable for high-volume manufacturing using Photovoltaic-grade Float Zone (PVFZ) silicon. Modules have been built. All test sequences for IEEE 1262 qualification have been passed and a 5kW demonstration array has been installed. Advantages of the cell design include a grid-less front surface and n-type starting material that does not suffer the initial light-induced degradation of commonly-used p-type wafers. Additional technical information about cell design and experiment results is also provided.
Keywords: High-efficiency, c-Si, back contact
 
Green Energy, every example given is an example of corruption.

SunPower: Twice As Bad As Solyndra, Twice As Bad For Obama

How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project-three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.

The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization. If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down. Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra drain.

Two men with insight into the process are SunPower rooter Rep. George R. Miller III, (D.-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee and the co-chairman of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and his SunPower lobbyist son, George Miller IV.
 
It is no secret that President Obama’s and green-energy supporters’ (from both parties) foray into venture capitalism has not gone well. But the extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the press. Sure, single instances garner attention as they happen, but they ignore past failures in order to make it seem like a rare case.

The truth is that the problem is widespread. The government’s picking winners and losers in the energy market has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and the rate of failure, cronyism, and corruption at the companies receiving the subsidies is substantial. The fact that some companies are not under financial duress does not make the policy a success. It simply means that our taxpayer dollars subsidized companies that would’ve found the financial support in the private market.

So far, 36 companies that were offered federal support from taxpayers are faltering — either having gone bankrupt or laying off workers or heading for bankruptcy. This list includes only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy and other agencies. The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher.

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
Solyndra ($535 million)*
Beacon Power ($43 million)*
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.2 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
Amonix ($5.9 million)
Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
Abound Solar ($400 million)*
A123 Systems ($279 million)*
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Schneider Electric ($86 million)
Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
ECOtality ($126.2 million)
Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
Range Fuels ($80 million)*
Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 million)
LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
Navistar ($39 million)
Satcon ($3 million)*
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

LINK: The Complete List of Obama's Taxpayer-Backed Green Energy Failures
 
Black Silicon Solar Cell Hits 18.2% Efficiency, Should Help to Reduce Costs

October 13, 2012 By Nathan 1 Comment
Black-silicon solar cells with 18.2% efficiency have been created by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). These don’t need extra anti-reflection layers (like typical solar cells do), which should help to significantly lower the cost of solar energy.

The specially designed nanostructured surface ensures that the light-generated electricity is still collectable in an efficient way from the solar cell, while still conferring the inherent advantages of a ‘black silicon‘ material.

“The researchers made nano-islands of silver on a silicon wafer and immersed it briefly in liquids to make billions of nano-sized holes in each square-inch of the silicon wafer surface,”an NREL news release states. “The holes and silicon walls are smaller than the light wavelengths hitting them, so the light doesn’t recognize any sudden change in density at the surface and, thus, don’t reflect back into the atmosphere as wasted energy. The researchers controlled the nanoshapes and the chemical composition of the surface to reach record solar cell efficiencies for this ‘black silicon’ material.”

Regularly, solar cell manufacturers need to add an additional anti-reflection layer, sometimes even more than one, to their cells; this raises the manufacturing costs considerably.

Black Silicon Solar Cell Hits 18.2% Efficiency, Should Help to Reduce Costs - CleanTechnica

My skepticism on this comes from an appreciation about how incremental engineering improvements make a diff (or not) in product improvements. This is an example of using nanotech to make a better anti-reflection (AR) coating for PV panels.. But the fact that it contributes a noticeable "black" surface worries me greatly --- Since thermal accumulation is the biggest threat to solid silicon efficiency and life. Until you account for ALL METRICS of a new process, --- all you have is a data point on ONE metric. And this one is better AR coating efficiency.. It's jumping the gun to declare that this will produce a concommitant increase in a real product..
 

Forum List

Back
Top