New World Record Set for Solar Cells: 44% Efficiency

[ScienceRocks]

New World Record Set for Solar Cells: 44% Efficiency
New World Record Set for Solar Cells: 44% Efficiency : TreeHugger

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and their industry partner Solar Junction, have just set the bar even higher in the race for ultra-high-effiency photovoltaic (PV) cells by achieving another world record of 44% efficiency.

The newest cells build on previous successes with multi-junction PV cells (which use layered semiconductors, with each layer optimized to capture different wavelengths of light) and combine them with low-cost concentrating lenses to multiply the intensity of the sun's energy hitting the cells.

Last year, NREL and Solar Junction set a record in efficiency with their SJ3 cells, which are designed for use in utility-scale concentrated solar photovoltaic projects. The SJ3 was verified as being able to convert 43.5% (at 415 suns - a measurement of the intensity of the sun's energy when multiplied) of the energy in sunlight into electricity, but this latest iteration set a new high of 44% efficiency (at 947 suns).

The breakthrough garnered NREL yet another R&D 100 award from R&D Magazine, their third so far, and according to them, it, along with other advances, could "pave the way for a 50%-efficient solar cell in the not-distant future".

 

[ScienceRocks]

Nanomaterials that Split Sunlight Into Separate Colors Could Bring Solar Panels to 50% Efficiency


Nanomaterials that Split Sunlight Into Separate Colors Could Bring Solar Panels to 50% Efficiency : TreeHugger

I don't know about you, but I love to follow the progress of technology. Every year batteries improve so they can hold more power, LEDs become brighter, CPUs become faster, hard drives can hold more data, etc. And the beautiful thing is that most of these improvements usually end up being less expensive, or at least priced similarly, to the technologies they supplant. What's not to like? One area where a lot of progress has been made over the past few decades is solar panels, yet there's still a lot of headroom left to push things further. That's exactly what a new DARPA-funded project is trying to do by using nanostructured materials to make solar panels much more efficient than they currently are (they claim they can get to above 50% efficiency, against the less than 20% which is the norm right now).