background preloader

Thin Solar Panels

Facebook Twitter

Team creates a low cost thin film photovoltaic device with high energy efficiency. A group of researchers led by Hendrik Bolink of the Institut de Ciència Molecular (ICMol) of the Scientific Park of the University of Valencia has developed a thin film low cost photovoltaic device with high power conversion efficiency.

Team creates a low cost thin film photovoltaic device with high energy efficiency

The results of this work, done in collaboration with researchers of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, were published in the scientific magazine Nature Photonics. The solar cell developed by the researchers of the ICMol consists of a thin perovskite film sandwiched in between two very thin organic semiconductors. The total thickness of the device is less than half a micrometer, less than a millions' part of a meter. The hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite material can be prepared easily and at low cost. Hendrik Bolink explains that these devices were prepared with low temperature processes similar to those used in the printing industry which allows the use of plastic substrates such that flexible devices can be prepared.

Dr. Solar Power To Be Sold For Less Than Coal. Clean Power Published on February 3rd, 2013 | by Nicholas Brown Update: Some sentences and links have been added to this post to provide better context and comparison.

Solar Power To Be Sold For Less Than Coal

Update #2: I’ve published two articles on energy subsidies in response to comments on this post regarding that matter. They are: “Energy Subsidies — Clean Energy Subsidies vs Fossil Subsidies” and “Oil Subsidies & Natural Gas Subsidies — Subsidies For The Big Boys.” According to a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) between El Paso Electric Company and First Solar, electricity will be sold from First Solar’s thin-film solar panels to El Paso Electric Company for 5.8 cents per kWh (a good 4-8 cents cheaper than new coal, which is in the 10-14 cents per kWh range). Surge in renewable energy as solar panel prices plummet. Solar panels on a bungalow.

Surge in renewable energy as solar panel prices plummet

Photograph: Alamy The global deployment of renewable energy from wind, solar and biofuels grew in 2012 but the income from the sector remained flat due to the plummeting costs for solar photovoltaic panels. The revenue for the three technologies increased by 1% globally to $249bn in 2012, according to the Clean Energy Trends 2013 report released on Tuesday by renewable energy research firm Clean Edge. "We always knew each doubling of [solar PV] installation would reduce prices about 18%," the Clean Edge founder, Ron Pernick, told the Guardian. Pernick said that prices were falling because the sector was expanding rapidly, doubling every one to two years. Back in 2000, solar revenues were only $2.5bn and prices were set to reach so-called grid parity – costing the same as conventional energy sources - by 2020. Overall, renewable energy increased its market share of new energy investments from 1.1% in 2001 to 19% in 2012.

Science and technology: Sunny uplands. Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels. Twin Creeks, a solar power startup that emerged from hiding today, has developed a way of creating photovoltaic cells that are half the price of today’s cheapest cells, and thus within reach of challenging the fossil fuel hegemony.

Solar panel made with ion cannon is cheap enough to challenge fossil fuels

The best bit: Twin Creeks’ photovoltaic cells are created using a hydrogen ion particle accelerator. As it stands, almost every solar panel is made by slicing a 200-micrometer-thick (0.2mm) wafer from a block of crystalline silicon. You then add some electrodes, cover it in protective glass, and leave it in a sunny area to generate electricity through the photovoltaic effect (when photons hit the silicon, it excites the electrons and generates a charge). This is where Twin Creeks’ ion cannon, dubbed Hyperion, comes into play. Flexible silicon solar-cell fabrics may soon become possible. For the first time, a silicon-based optical fiber with solar-cell capabilities has been developed that has been shown to be scalable to many meters in length.

Flexible silicon solar-cell fabrics may soon become possible

The research opens the door to the possibility of weaving together solar-cell silicon wires to create flexible, curved, or twisted solar fabrics. The findings by an international team of chemists, physicists, and engineers, led by John Badding, a professor of chemistry at Penn State University, will be posted by the journal Advanced Materials in an early online edition on 6 December 2012 and will be published on a future date in the journal's print edition. The team's new findings build on earlier work addressing the challenge of merging optical fibers with electronic chips—silicon-based integrated circuits that serve as the building blocks for most semiconductor electronic devices such as solar cells, computers, and cell phones. Pier J. A. New Peel-And-Stick Solar Cells Can Power Anything.

You usually see solar cells on houses and buildings; those aren’t the only things they can power, obviously, but they’re too rigid to be adaptable enough to put most other places.

New Peel-And-Stick Solar Cells Can Power Anything

Finally, though, Stanford researchers have invented the flexible photovaltaics that peel and stick like decals. Can you say solar-powered business card? These flimsier solar cells don’t have to be applied to a hard final layer, which lets them move more than their firmer counterparts. The new versions can be attached to pretty much anything, like a sticker. Phys.org explains the how these cells are created: