DARPA Awards $53 Million for Solar Power Research

mygadgetbox writes "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will be giving a consortium led by the University of Delaware nearly $53 million in funding to more than double the efficiency of terrestrial solar cells within the next 50 months. DARPA wants the consortium to develop and produce 1,000 Very High Efficiency Solar Cell (VHESC) prototypes that are affordable and that operate at efficiencies of at least 50 percent. The goal is to create solar cells that operate at about 54 percent efficiency in the laboratory and 50 percent in production."

Comments

Meh.

[pavon]

We spent two decades wasting time trying to improve the energy efficiency of solar cells. The energy efficiency isn't what matters - it is the cost efficiency! If you are using solar cells as supplemental power to a house (their most effective application), then doubling the energy efficiency of the panel just means you get to use a smaller panel. Who cares - you have a whole roof's worth of space up there. Whereas if you get the price down, then you will decrease the amount of time it takes to pay off the cost of the cells, making it worthwhile to include them in more homes. And for other uses - cars, power plants, even if we had 50% efficient cells they still wouldn't generate enough power to be much use.

I have been getting excited about some of the recent research that is making progress towards less costly, cleaner (to produce and dispose) solar cells. I guess if you are the military, and price is not an issue than this DARPA research is usefull. They need to find some way to power all this new electronics equipment that soldiers are carrying. But it is improvements in cost efficiency that will really make a difference in real world.

Re:Meh.

[CosmeticLobotamy]

Unless you're trying to put a field of the things in a desert somewhere to supplement a city's power. Then the land costs more than the cells will, and being able to use fewer saves money and, in some cases, makes it feasible at all.

Re:Meh.

[HUADPE]

There is a key problem with putting solar cells in the middle of the desert. Nobody lives anywhere near it. Transmission of electricity uses up energy, so sending power from the Nevada/New Mexico border to Los Angeles can reduce its voltage by more than half at the end of the trip. The land is cheap, but you need to buy twice as much and put twice as many cells on it to have the same effect as a local source.

1000000 times better...

[MichaelSmith]

...than looking for ways to bury waste products in the ocean.

Photocells are already fantastic technology. Not only do you save the energy you would otherwise be drawing from a power plant, you also save the energy needed to deliver the energy to the point where it is used.

A lot of public lighting near my home is now solar powered. The big advantage is that you don't have to dig trenches to the site. Trenching is very expensive because of the associated labour costs, and labour costs feed back directly into energy costs.

Re:1000000 times better...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the mean time, producing a solar panel still costs more energy than what it will produce in its lifetime. Don't discard the ocean solution just yet.

This is good and all

[rolfwind]

But the article is almost talking as if the goal of doubling the now 25% efficency being doubled are being guaranteed to be met which is hardly the case - it's been over 30 years (where it was what 8% effieciency?) since solar cells were introduced and many other countrie/companies have been working on improving efficiency without that huge jump in performance - Germany/France in particular.

land is cheap..

[slashkitty]

compared to solar cells. Are you crazy or something? about the only place where land is more expensive is in or close to a city. Solar cells cost about $100 per sqft.. while land around here costs about $50k per acre, or about $1 per sqft. If you can get me some solar cells for less than $1 per square foot, I think we could have a good business.

Re:TATFA (think about the article)

[king-manic]

While I agree sometimes it is better to spend the money and get more efficient, I'm not sure I want my tax dollars wasted on something like this if the govt decides to buy a single expensive solar cell rather than some body armor for some troops on the ground facing suicide bombers...

Body armour may stop shrapnel. Body armour can't stop kenetic force. So it's good versus grenades, small arms, peripheral range of explosions, but piss poor against a bomb attack.

Uses for solar panels

[Mishra100]

I agree with the poster that says cost efficency is the biggest problem. I'm not sure how much they cost, but my dream is to create skyscapers completely out of solar panel. I think the panels look sexy enough to be on a lot of things. They should experiment with different looks for solar panels and have entire cities dressed with solar panels. This would save a whole lot on enegry costs as would be the purpose for solar panels. They should also experiment with a impact resistant solar panel. That way we can dress our cars completely out of solar panel. Basically, I think they should focus their ideas on making solar panels dynamic so we may use them in lots of applications!

Re:Uses for solar panels

[MichaelSmith]

I agree with the poster that says cost efficency is the biggest problem.

It is a similar issue to VLSI chips. Once you have sufficent economies of scale, costs will fall rapidly.

Re:A Good Start

[cameldrv]

Obviously the issue is simply cost. He dismisses fission because he says we'd have to build a plant every other day to make it work. Well, to replace that with solar, you'd have to build something like ten gigawatts of solar panels, install them, and hook them up to the grid or to individual consumers. The question is which one is harder. In a market economy, generally the way you figure that out is which one costs more. Solar costs more than Nuclear, and we would need a lot of undeveloped technology if we were relying heavily on solar, due to its variability. Nuclear is reliable, has a nearly inexhaustable fuel supply, and is well proven technology.

Re:TATFA (think about the article)

[NMerriam]

The solar cells used in the field are not the fragile glass units people think of. We use two flexible, folding solar arrays for our field work that are MILSPEC and they can be run over by trucks, take 7.62mm rounds, and fold down to about the size and weight of a laptop computer. Less efficient than the glass panels, but that's the tradeoff.

And being able to set up a self-supporting field communications center with a small backpack full of gear can make a LOT more difference in war than an extra piece of body armor. But the power output is not great for the surface area, while ultimately I'm sure the DoD would love to be able to make the backpacks out of solar cloth and charge everything during normal activity.

Re:TATFA (think about the article)

[Jeremi]

Have you ever thought that if the government didn't spend so much money sending troops to other countries where they are not wanted, there would be plenty of money to spend on good research such as this?

Nah, you have it backwards... if the American people weren't kept in a constant state of fear and reliance on the Pentagon to "protect" them, they wouldn't be so willing to fork over their tax dollars to support the world's largest military. That's the beauty of the system: the bigger the US military-industrial complex grows, the more the rest of the world resents and fears the USA. The more the rest of the world hates and fears the USA, the more insecure the US population becomes. The more insecure the US population becomes, the more willing they are to funnel more of their tax money into "defense", in the hopes that it will make them safer from the world that hates them so. So essentially the more money they spend, the more money they will have to spend later on.