Quantcast
Channel: WAOW Weather Blog » Semprius
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 5

Solar World Record

0
0

SJUSTIN NEW SMALLince I re-visited the topics of clean energy and technological progress earlier this month, it is a great time to relate to you a couple of new world records.

World records! It sounds dramatic. In the world of solar power it seems there is a new press release about every other month claiming a new world record for efficiency. Thinking back to all of the  progress and records I have tracked through the years, one might expect by now the world would be awash in solar power and clean energy. This is not yet the case. When you read a breaking news story or press release you have to look into the details in order to decipher the true nature of the breakthrough. For anyone who follows solar energy as more than a passing fancy, you know that the world record efficiency is north of 40%. So why is this 5.5% efficiency reported two years ago a “world record”? Because it is a record for an organic photovoltaic module (a special type of solar module). What about this 36.9% record mentioned in the blog three years ago? It was a record for compound solar cells. And this 33.9% record from the company Semprius? That was for an entire solar panel, not just a single crystalline cell. As far as single crystalline cells go, the highest efficiency achieved with a light concentrating lens, in the lab was 43.5% by Sharp back in 2012. This was surpassed this year by researchers in Germany (Fraunhofer Institute, Soitec, ISE, CEA-Leti, and Helmholtz Center) who achieved 44.7% efficiency.

So I was a bit surprised Monday by an announcement from the Unversity of New South Wales (Australia) that they have achieved a new world record with an efficiency of 40%. That number seemed a little low, so I contacted the University for an explanation. Professor Martin Green responded with these tidbits:

  • The record is for conversion of sunlight into electricity in a reasonably sized (287-cm2) system including both optical elements and cells, as well as all losses involved in getting the sunlight to the cell, rather than being deduced for a small area  (commonly less than 0.1-cm2) cell measured indoors under a uniform, high-intensity flash of artificial light.
  • The efficiency result was obtained in an outdoor testing environment with natural sunlight. 
  • Notably, the result was achieved using commercially available solar cells, rather than those that are only available to researchers.

Since this new record is from “out in the field”, it makes it more dramatic than some of the tiny crystalline cells under concentrated light in the lab (which are still very important and notable). This is a method to squeeze more efficiency out of standard solar modules and towers.

Typical solar installation

Typical solar installation

Although the press release details are a bit scant, from what I gather, they are using conventional solar cells in addition to a solar tower to turn out the higher efficiency. They are using a special filter to capture light that is not used by the conventional solar cell and then focusing it on a tower to generate more electricity (probably through heat and steam turbines, but don’t quote me on it). I am not getting too excited just yet though, because even though it is a great achievement, anytime extra parts are added to a system, it adds to the cost and complexity. More part means more things that can break and more things to maintain. Hopefully they will get a pilot-scale system up and running soon to prove whether or not it is economically viable (without government subsidies).

In the realm of not-so-efficient-but-potentially-useful solar power is spray-on technology. Very thin, flexible, and spray-on solar technology has been in the news for years but has not made a big impact as of yet. The hope is that many irregular surfaces ill-suited for typical rigid solar modules, can be coated with this technology. The technology might not be very efficient, if it can be done cheaply, then we can start harvesting electricity from a lot of unexpected places. Progress in this area has been slow, but work continues. Researchers at IBM Canada and the University of Toronto are using colloidal quantum dots to advance the art of spray-on solar. Read about it here.

Have a nice Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 5

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images