Scientists use light to purge defects from solar cells

The last decade has seen a radical drop in the price of solar panels, driven largely by advances in manufacturing and installation. Researchers are developing solar cells that are even cheaper, using perovskite crystals, a cost-effective alternative to silicon typically used in solar panels.

New research published in the inaugural issue of the journal Joule suggests that light and water could be used to make perovskite solar cells markedly more efficient.

Perovskites are thought to be the next big thing in solar. While solar panels have gotten a lot more affordable, they will need to become dirt cheap if we are going to beat climate change. Buying rooftop solar panels will need to cost about as much as throwing on a new coat of paint. Perovskites might help us get there.

To understand how this remarkable technology works, take a peek inside a conventional solar cell. When sunshine strikes the solar panel, particles of light knock free surplus electrons from molecules of silicon. Those electrons flow through the metal lining of the cell and then by wire to homes and businesses in need of power.

Read more > Scientists use light to purge defects from solar cells

Researchers Develop Solar Cells That Can Be Sewn Onto Clothing

Today’s solar panels are rigid and bulky. There’s nothing so wrong with that when they’re in the middle of the Arizona desert, but that bulkiness doesn’t translate to powering an iPhone or Fitbit.

To bring the sun’s power to wearables requires a new kind of solar cell, one that’s lightweight and water-resistant. As researchers at the University of Tokyo and Japan’s RIKEN research institute describe Monday in the scientific journal Nature Energy, their newly created cell could be just what’s needed.

“Our devices will be able to be integrated onto the clothing, attached onto the shoulders or backsides, or onto our hats,” RIKEN researcher Kenjiro Fukuda tells Inverse. “And these power sources can supply enough electrical powers to [Internet of Things] devices such as sensors, or maybe iPhone or smartphone systems to supply charge to the smart devices.”

The idea of solar clothing isn’t all that new; Tommy Hilfiger, for instance, rolled out limited-edition jackets in 2014 with their very own solar panels placed on the back. But there’s a reason those jackets never got brought back for a full production run: The cells were too big and hefty to work as much of anything other than an expensive novelty.

Read more > Researchers Develop Solar Cells That Can Be Sewn Onto Clothing

These New Solar Cells Are Modeled After a Fly’s Eye

As far as elements go, silicon is second only to oxygen when it comes to abundance on Earth. For this and its properties as a semiconductor it has long been the backbone of electronics. The material is in everything from computer chips to radios. It’s the namesake, after all, of the modern tech industry’s hub in California, Silicon Valley.

Speaking of the sunny tech capital, silicon is the primary element used in solar panels. Three scientists at New Jersey’s Bell Telephone Company patented the very first silicon solar cell—the first solar cell to be considered practical, with its ability to convert 6 percent of incoming light into usable electricity—in the 1950s. The material has dominated the solar market ever since. Today, more than 90 percent of panels produced worldwide are crystalline silicon PV panels.

Silicon has earned so much status and market influence, with little competition in the solar space, that few know there are other options for solar.

Perovskites, or crystalline structures, are a new type of solar cell, made of common elements such as methylammonium lead iodide. Perovskites are easier to manufacture, and have the potential to convert sunlight to electricity at a greater rate than silicon cells. The challenge is that perovskites are extremely fragile.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/these-new-solar-cells-are-modeled-after-flys-eye-180964911/#jYMAkv4eiEDbBMKU.99
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Read more > These New Solar Cells Are Modeled After a Fly’s Eye

Flisom launches next-gen flexible solar panels

Flisom AG, an innovative and specialized solar technology company, backed by Tata Industries, a group of Swiss investors and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa), declared today that they were open for global orders at an exclusive roll out event for customers and partners in Zurich, Switzerland. Flisom showcased a range of applications including buildings-integrated PV modules for light weight roofs and facades.

Flisom’s solar modules are extremely light (as light as 200g/m2), and highly efficient (up to 50x power-to-weight ratio compared to silicon PV panels) and ultra-thin (under 2mm). In addition, their uniform, jet-black design offers beautiful aesthetics, making the technology suitable for use anywhere that aesthetics are also important.

Since 2013, Flisom has invested in developing proprietary manufacturing equipment and components, creating a unique ‘roll to roll’ manufacturing process which can replicate the laboratory success of CIGS solar technology on an industrial scale. It is already scaling up production in Switzerland to fulfil incoming orders and scouting for locations globally for further scale up.

The company is already working with leading global automotive, aerospace, and transportation companies to create custom solar-integrated solutions, for cars, UAVs and public transportation carriages.

Over the past few years, Flisom has received significant investment from Tata Industries (part of the $100bn Tata group) and a group of Swiss investors.

Over the next year, Flisom will be targeting opportunities in the UK, continental Europe and the United States.

Read more > Flisom launches next-gen flexible solar panels

Sunflare adds efficient solar power to any recreational vehicle

The advent of lightweight, affordable, and efficient solar panels has been a real game-changer for recreational vehicle owners. In the past, if they wanted to add solar power to their camper, it typically involved mounting large heavy panels to the roof. But now, a company called Sunflare came up with a new lightweight and flexible option that can still generate plenty of energy from the sun.

The breakthrough that Sunflare has delivered begins in the manufacturing process, which the company says is the cleanest and most environmentally friendly in the industry. Using what it calls Capture4 technology, the new Sunflare solar panels are created on a cell-by-cell level, which improves both durability and performance. This also allows the manufacturer to do things like add bypass diodes to each individual cell as well, giving them the ability to turn themselves off when shaded without negatively impacting the performance of any unshaded cells around them. The result is better energy production even in shady conditions.

Read more > Sunflare adds efficient solar power to any recreational vehicle

Particle Accelerators Could Be the Key to Cheaper Solar Panels

Making solar panels is complicated work. There are a lot of steps to get from raw materials to a finished, fully functional solar panel. But did you know one of those steps can involve a particle accelerator? Minute Physics explains:

At their core, solar panels are made of the same thing computer chips are made of: silicon. Pure silicon is made in long cylinders, called boules, that are sliced into hundreds or thousands of very thin wafers. Usually, these wafers are less than a millimeter thick.

So how to slice them? Typically, manufacturers will use a saw, which works by removing some of the silicon to create a gap, turning part of that boule into silicon sawdust. But this means that much of the silicon is wasted. Instead of a saw, why not use a particle accelerator?

While you might be thinking of using the particle accelerator as a high-powered cutting laser, in actuality the process is much more subtle. The particle accelerator is fired face-on at the boule, and the accelerator embeds protons inside the silicon. Thanks to an interesting property of particle physics, charged particles like protons passing through a material will travel a very specific distance and stop.

Read more > Particle Accelerators Could Be the Key to Cheaper Solar Panels

More efficient solar panels… in algae?

Solar panels are quite an inefficient form of renewable energy – only around 20 percent of incoming sunlight is turned into energy. However, with a little help from millions of years of evolution and some algae, solar panels could start to shape up.

Founded in 2014, Swedish Algae Factory is an algae cultivator with a sustainable mindset. The company, a self-proclaimed “visionary algae lab,” works with a specific strain of Diatom algae that can endure and multiply in the grim low-light, low-temperature conditions of the Nordic sea and has a set of remarkable abilities.

The outer shell of the algae allows it to absorb light very efficiently, enabling it to survive its harsh conditions. CEO Sofie Allert and her team discovered a way to harness this capacity to increase the efficiency of solar panels. “Basically what we do, is that we extract a material from algae that is designed by over a 100 million years of evolution to secure the survival of a specific algae group,” Sofie told TNW via email.

“The material constitutes the shell of a microscopic algae group called diatoms. This nanoporous silica material is naturally designed to trap visible light extremely efficiently in order to secure that the algae photosynthesize even when there is not that much light present,” she continues.


Read more > More efficient solar panels… in algae?