Engineers just created the most efficient solar cells ever
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Australian engineers have taken us closer than ever before to the theoretical limits of sunlight-to-electricity conversion, by building photovoltaic cells that can harvest an unheard-of 34.5 percent of the Sun's energy without concentrators - setting a new world record.
The previous record of 24 percent was held by a large, 800-square centimetre solar cell produced by a US company, but these new photovoltaic cells aren't only more efficient, they also cover far less surface area, which means they're going to make solar power even cheaper.
"This encouraging result shows that there are still advances to come in photovoltaics research to make solar cells even more efficient," said one of the researchers, Mark Keevers, from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney. "Extracting more energy from every beam of sunlight is critical to reducing the cost of electricity generated by solar cells as it lowers the investment needed, and delivering payback faster."
This UNSW team is the same one that set a new solar conversion record back in 2014, by using mirrors to concentrate sunlight and achieve 40 percent efficiency. But this new record is even more impressive, because it didn't involve any concentration, and it was something engineers hadn't expected to achieve for several decades.
"A recent study by Germany’s Agora Energiewende think tank set an aggressive target of 35 percent efficiency by 2050 for a module that uses un-concentrated sunlight, such as the standard ones on family homes," said one of the researchers, Martin Green. "So things are moving faster in solar cell efficiency than many experts expected."
http://www.sciencealert.com/engineers-just-created-the-most-efficient-solar-cells-ever
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17 May 2016 | Wilson da Silva
[font size=4]Australian engineers have edged closer to the theoretical limits of sunlight-to-electricity conversion by photovoltaic cells with a device that sets a new world efficiency record.[/font]
[font size=1]Dr Mark Keevers with one of the spectrum splitting, four-junction mini-modules developed at UNSW.[/font]
[font size=3]A new solar cell configuration developed by engineers at the University of New South Wales has pushed sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiency to 34.5% – establishing a new world record for unfocused sunlight and nudging closer to the theoretical limits for such a device.
The record was set by Dr Mark Keevers and Professor Martin Green, Senior Research Fellow and Director, respectively, of UNSW’s Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics, using a 28-cm2 four-junction mini-module – embedded in a prism – that extracts the maximum energy from sunlight. It does this by splitting the incoming rays into four bands, using a hybrid four-junction receiver to squeeze even more electricity from each beam of sunlight.
The new UNSW result, confirmed by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is almost 44% better than the previous record – made by Alta Devices of the USA, which reached 24% efficiency, but over a larger surface area of 800-cm2.
“This encouraging result shows that there are still advances to come in photovoltaics research to make solar cells even more efficient,” said Keevers. “Extracting more energy from every beam of sunlight is critical to reducing the cost of electricity generated by solar cells as it lowers the investment needed, and delivering payback faster.”
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