UCLA researchers create highly transparent solar cells for windows that generate electricity

[PamW]

24. Exactly what I wanted to see...

The above post is exactly what I wanted to see. It documents what I suspected from the press release.

The power conversion efficiency for these solar cells are indeed very low at 4% efficiency.

Additionally, the solar cell function reduces the transparency, and hence light transmission properties relative to glass by about 34% ( 66% transmission ).

So there you have it in a nutshell. Of the incident photon energy, these cells give you 4% of your incident energy as electricity, and you pay for that with 34% reduction in light transmission.

It had to be something like that. There's NEVER a "free lunch" with energy. You can't "win" and the laws of physics never even let you break even. You just have to learn to live with that since there's nothing you can do about it. Yet so many are always looking for that "free lunch" which costs them more than it's worth.

PamW