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Perovskite promises to be less expensive and more efficient than silicon—and several companies say they’re close to producing it at scale. SAULE TECHNOLOGIES ==================================================================================== Testing perovskite solar cells in the lab used to require a decent pair of running shoes. The materials fell apart so quickly that scientists would bolt from where they made the cells to where they tested them, trying to measure their performance before the cells degraded in their hands—usually within a couple of minutes. Perovskites have long enchanted researchers with the promise of producing inexpensive, ultra-efficient solar cells. And now several companies are making major strides...

I have created a solar oven with an old satellite dish and about 250 small mirrors. My thermometer reached >600 degrees F in about one minute. I'm trying to think of a way for it to automatically track the path of the sun. Any suggestions?

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have set a world record in solar cell efficiency...

Solar power, the holy grail of renewable energy, has always faced the problem of how to store the energy captured from the sun’s rays so that demand for electricity can be met at night or whenever the sun is not shining. The difficulty is that electricity is hard to store. Batteries are not up to efficiently storing energy on a large scale. A different approach being tried by the solar power industry could eliminate the problem. The idea is to capture the sun’s heat. Heat, unlike electric current, is something that industry knows how to store cost-effectively. For example, a...

Solar-power modules that concentrate the power of the sun are becoming more viable. A worker arranges wafers that will be fabricated into superefficient solar cells. These cells could help dramatically reduce the cost of generating electricity from solar energy. (Credit: The Boeing Company) Technologies collectively known as concentrating photovoltaics are starting to enjoy their day in the sun, thanks to advances in solar cells, which absorb light and convert it into electricity, and the mirror- or lens-based concentrator systems that focus light on them. The technology could soon make solar power as cheap as electricity from the grid. The idea...

Here is what the acolytes of solar power don't want you to know... These are the essentials you need in order to appreciate the absurdity of using solar cell power systems as any kind of sensible alternative. After you read this, ask yourself again how much sense solar power really makes. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO THE SUN'S ENERGY WHEN WE USE SOLAR CELLS TO GENERATE ELECTRICITY:     SOURCE   LOSS - %     POWER - W/m2   1.     solar constant       --   1370W 2.   atmosphere       27   1000W...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Apathy, expensive equipment among hurdles Solar energy has become almost a throwback term from the energy crunch of almost three decades ago, when some environmental advocates felt homeowners could help end the country's reliance on imported oil and reduce pollution. Unattractive solar panels on rooftops popped up here and there, but generally the technology failed to catch on in any great numbers with homeowners. But some architecture students at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte proved recently that with the right technology, the sun can satisfy much of the power needs of...

Auroras may dazzle more people than usual this weekend as Earth receives a glancing blow from an enormous solar outburst that erupted on Jan. 19. The outburst, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), was detected by sun-watching satellites. Researchers at the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute predict that auroras should be visible from Seattle, Des Moines, Chicago, and Cleveland, to Boston and Halifax, Nova Scotia Saturday and Sunday nights, weather permitting. ... Space Weather Center forecasters say they expect the encounter to generate a weak geomagnetic disturbance beginning around 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time Sunday Jan. 22 and lasting...

Starting with US, with expected transition to Europe In a TED talk published a few days ago, Tesla CEO Elon "it's coming sonn" Musk said  that in addition to the lithium-ion battery factory – or Gigafactory – under construction in Nevada, the compan will announce locations for up to four more "gigafactories" later this year. Tesla’s first lithium-ion battery production factory began construction in Reno, Nevada in the summer of 2014 after Panasonic reached a basic agreement with Tesla to invest in a factory estimated at $5 billion. Panasonic would lead the battery cell portion of the manufacturing, while...

Solar cells made from an inexpensive and increasingly popular material called perovskite can more efficiently turn sunlight into electricity using a new technique to sandwich two types of perovskite into a single photovoltaic cell. Perovskite solar cells are made of a mix of organic molecules and inorganic elements that together capture light and convert it into electricity, just like today’s more common silicon-based solar cells. Perovskite photovoltaic devices, however, can be made more easily and cheaply than silicon and on a flexible rather than rigid substrate. The first perovskite solar cells could go on the market next year, and some...

A new MIT study offers a way out of one of solar power's most vexing problems: the matter of efficiency, and the bare fact that much of the available sunlight in solar power schemes is wasted. The researchers appear to have found the key to perfect solar energy conversion efficiency—or at least something approaching it. It's a new material that can accept light from an very large number of angles and can withstand the very high temperatures needed for a maximally efficient scheme. Conventional solar cells, the silicon-based sheets used in most consumer-level applications, are far from perfect. Light from...

An improvement in the makeup of solar cells generates electricity while maintaining a 70% transparency, making it adaptable to homes and businesses to reduce energy costs. The polymer solar cell is light, flexible and cheap to produce. If this goes into mass production, it could spell the end of unsightly bulky roof mounted solar panels. "These results open the potential for visibly transparent polymer solar cells as add-on components of portable electronics, smart windows and building-integrated photovoltaics and in other applications" Comments

New Book: Solar Cells 23,000 Times Worse for Environment Than Carbon Dioxide Tuesday, June 05, 2012 – by Staff Report Solar Cells Linked to Greenhouse Gases Over 23,000 Times Worse than According to New Book, Green Illusions ... Solar cells do not offset greenhouse gases or curb fossil fuel use in the United States according to a new environmental book, Green Illusions (June 2012, University of Nebraska Press), written by University of California - Berkeley visiting scholar Ozzie Zehner. Green Illusions explains how the solar industry has grown to become one of the leading emitters of hexafluoroethane (C2F6), nitrogen...

US chemists have shown that trace impurities - below the sensitivity of standard characterisation techniques - can halve the efficiency of bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells. Their finding means that initially promising materials for device applications may have been written off prematurely owing to their low efficiencies.  Trace impurities are difficult to detect owing to their similarity to donor molecules in solar cells. The impurities can significantly influence photovoltaic properties Unlike traditional inorganic solar cells, polymer cells do not immediately create charge carriers but instead create electron-hole pairs called excitons over a donor-acceptor interface, which migrate to the electrodes. In...

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is technologically capable of producing CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-selenide) thin-film PV (photovoltaic) modules with energy conversion rates on a par with those for PV modules made of crystalline silicon solar cells, according to company chairman Morris Chang. TSMC received CIGS technology from US-based Stion through stake investment and is setting up a factory in central Taiwan.

Listening to outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and incoming Gov. Jerry Brown, Californians might think the California economy's salvation lies in so-called "green jobs," which now account for about 3 percent of the state's workforce. What boosters of green jobs don't usually mention is most of these jobs require substantial taxpayer subsidies and other special government treatment even to exist in a competitive market. It appears now that even a half-billion dollars in government aid is no guarantee of success. President Barack Obama, center, poses for a photo with construction workers building a new Solyndra, Inc., a solar panel manufacturing facility,...

Rubrene crystal raises hope for the use of organic semiconductors and cheaper, more efficient solar cells Rutgers University physicists have found new properties within a material that could lead to the production of less expensive and more efficient plastic solar cells. Vitaly Podzorov, co-author of the study and assistant professor of physics at Rutgers University, along with his research team have discovered that organic semiconductors allow energy-carrying particles -- which are created by "packets" of light -- to journey a thousand times farther than researchers previously thought. "Organic semiconductors are promising for solar cells and other uses, such as video displays, because they can be...

Researchers have moved a step closer to overcoming one of the key hurdles to developing low-cost solar cells based on dye-coated titanium dioxide.Dye-sensitised solar cells (DSCs) were invented by Michael Grätzel and Brian O'Regan some 20 years ago, and consist of a thin film of titanium dioxide coated with a ruthenium-based dye, in contact with a redox electrolyte.  Dye-based solar cells could offer a cheaper alternative to silicon-based photovoltaics While dye-based systems are less efficient in converting solar energy than photovoltaic cells made from silicon, they are likely to become cheaper to manufacture and be more versatile in a number...

US researchers have designed a new silicon-based solar cell which uses 100 times less silicon than conventional photovoltaic devices. The system relies on the geometry of the silicon being reconfigured from a flat wafer to arrays of tiny silicon rods aligned vertically on the cell.Currently silicon solar cells are fabricated on brittle wafers of silicon around 100-200 micrometres thick. While these can be relatively efficient in terms of conversion of light energy to electrical energy - up to 25 per cent - relatively large quantities of silicon material are needed, which is a significant part of the cost of the...

IBM researchers have developed a new class of solar-powered electricity-generating cells that they claim will bring photovoltaic cells closer to cost parity with conventional energy sources. The researchers from IBM's T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York have published their findings in a paper entitled "High-Efficiency Solar Cell with Earth-Abundant Liquid-Processed Absorber," available here (PDF). The materials used in the new cell are copper, zinc, tin, selenium, and sulfur - the latter two "earth-abundant" materials being in a chalcogenide compound, key to the photovoltaic properties of the cell. The use of these materials bypasses problems inherent in...