Sunlight Converted Into Electricity With Highest Efficiency Ever Reported

Headlines and Global News ^ | 12/07/2014 | Rebecca Macarelli

[SeekAndFind]

Researchers have converted 40 percent of sunlight hitting a solar cell into electricity, which is the highest efficiency ever reported.

The achievement was made using focused sunlight, and could have implications in photovoltaic power, the University of New South Wales reported.

"This is the highest efficiency ever reported for sunlight conversion into electricity," said UNSW Scientia Professor and Director of the Advanced Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP) Professor Martin Green.

"We used commercial solar cells, but in a new way, so these efficiency improvements are readily accessible to the solar industry," added Mark Keevers, the UNSW solar scientist who managed the project.

The prototype also boasts an optical bandpass filters that work to capture the sunlight that is normally wasted by modern solar cells and converts it to electricity with a higher efficiency than conventional devices.

"We hope to see this home grown innovation take the next steps from prototyping to pilot scale demonstrations. Ultimately, more efficient commercial solar plants will make renewable energy cheaper, increasing its competitiveness," said ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht.

The achievement is one of many made by UNSW solar researchers over the past 40 years. This includes the first photovoltaic system to convert sunlight to electricity with over 20% efficiency in 1989, which doubled its performance.

[CPT Clay]

hmmm

[sphinx]

Agreed. It is easy to see how solar, IF costs continue to decline, could be integrated into building design. Many homeowners could become substantially or entirely self sufficient for electricity. If storage improves — another big IF — one might not even need the grid for emergency backup or peak capacity. But that still doesn’t get us anywhere close to what we need for high intensity industrial or commercial applications. That’s still far enough over the horizon that it’s science fiction. It could happen, but I’d still bet on next generation nuclear for centralized generation.

[taildragger]

In addition to the grammatical mistake, this statement makes no sense.

If I understand this panel design what they are doing is tailoring a series of sub-straits that target individual wavelengths ( or a bandwidth of light if you will) and what a tailored plate doesn't grab passes thought to be grabbed by the next substrate and it continues until the entire band is exhausted.

[PapaBear3625]

There could very well be a time when solar power makes sense in certain parts of the world.Australia is basically one huge desert.

Putting in a solar-powered desalinization plant might be viable. If the plant only runs when the sun shines, that's fine -- you just accumulate water then into holding tanks.