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Record-Breaking Solar Cells Tailored To Location
Urchin writes "The quality of sunlight varies depending on where you live, but off-the-shelf solar cells are all identical. A new solar cell designed by UK firm Quantasol is easily tuned to adapt to the local light conditions, which boosts its long-term performance. Its short-term performance isn't bad though — the single junction solar cell has a peak efficiency greater than any previous device, beating a world record that's stood for 21 years."
I know I'm heading to the moderation cellar for this, but COME ON guys, don't be so damn lazy about your language. See my sig below.
That kind of mistake is a huge cognitive speed bump for many readers. You're blowing your chance to communicate with your audience when you make (and belittle complaints about) adolescent mistakes like this.
One simple rule for its versus it's
Multi-junction cells are over 40%.
We should start dealing in those black-market beagles.
I know I'm heading to the moderation cellar for this, but COME ON guys, don't be so damn lazy about your language. See my sig below.
That kind of mistake is a huge cognitive speed bump for many readers. You're blowing your chance to communicate with your audience when you make (and belittle complaints about) adolescent mistakes like this.
Efficiency doesn't really matter. What we really want is the lowest cost per kWh. What's the price of these?
30%? 40%? Efficiency only matters if you're constrained by space (airplanes) or by weight (satellites). 15%-efficient solar cells are good enough that you can power your house with them by covering your roof -- or would be, if they were produced cheaply and in quantity.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Not to belittle this accomplishment, but I'd prefer to see an increase in average efficiency. According to the article the peak efficiency is found when panels are exposed to light 500 times that of normal light. How does that translate to efficiency under normal operating conditions (such as a semi-cloudy day in the midwest)? The article is rather short on details concerning how well the solar cells operate when they are "tailored to their locations."
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
Solar panels are actually very cheap to get. Drive down a freeway with those solar-powered emergency phones, knock down a few of the poles, take the panel from on top, and install it on your home. They're free to anyone who has the gumption to get them, courtesy of your state highway department!
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Umm, TONS of electronics use As, that doesn't make them dangerous. When its covalently bonded to things like Ga its pretty safe.
But what if you injure yourself? How would you call for help if you have wrecked the phone?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Current silicon cells are about 15-20% average efficiency, NOT 10-12%. They peak at just over 25% efficient as demonstrated by the research lab at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
SunPower A300 silicon cells average about 20% per bin.
It's true. The Fraunhofer Institute itself has produced more efficient cells. And all use multiple junctions.
Examples:
Fraunhofer - triple junction
NREL - triple junction
University of Delaware - bream splitting
All claim to be the record because there is no standardized way to measure power efficiency. However, the concept of quantum wells used in solar cells is a new concept.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
That's one company. Globally there is a much larger backlog.
Furthermore, it's very disingenuous to compare a commercial large-scale energy source with a localized energy source. Retail costs of solar production are not an apt comparison.
Finally, you need to understand that your electricity is heavily subsidized if you live near a nuke plant. Nuke plant power costs would be around 18 cents per kWH for new plants in the US (and that's a conservative estimate; costs to build plants are skyrocketing, all current projects in Europe are WAY over budget and it gets worse every year). Solar farms in good locations consistently produce power at 22-25 cents per kWH. Note this include materials, construction, maintenance, etc.
Yes, there's a cost gap. But that gap is closing.
Also, in checking my numbers, I came across this article from earlier today about the skyrocketing costs of nuclear power. It mentions estimated prices of 12 - 20 cents per kWh. My figure of 18 cents is the Keystone Center's midrange estimate.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Yeah, let's wait for a perfect, 100% pure solution before replacing the ugly, dirty, nasty coal energy plants we have right now.
Not a typewriter
My guess is that it's a lot more expensive. Semiconductor devices have to be processed in vacuum conditions and often at high temperatures; and the more precessing you use (triple junction has minimum 4 layers), the higher the cost. This is why there's interest in alternative, non-semiconductor devices like dye-based and conjugated polymer cells. Easy to produce in solution and at low temperature, no vacuum. There's a plethora of other undesirables in semiconductor solar cells too, like weight, inflexibility, etc.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It sounds like the interesting part here isn't the efficiency but that it's efficient enough and can handle a lot of extra sunlight via mirrors. The article fails to give any info though on what kind of efficiency other solar cells can achieve with mirrors focused on them. Without any reference it's hard to get an idea for whether or not this is even useful though.
It was only this year that the solar cell industry celebrated break the $1/watt barrier. Meanwhile, I'm getting power piped into my home at a few cents a kilowatt from a nuke plant ten minutes drive from here. And the power plant will last a lot longer than solar cells stapled to some roof will.
Don't spread FUD here if you can't get your physical units right! You get "power" for a few cents per kWh, not kW (they sell you energy, not power actually - the difference is important). The thin-film solar cells have broken 1$ per Watt installed - i.e. per measure of power which will produce energy year-in, year-out (viz. 1 kWh every 42 days) and thus might end up being as cheap as nuclear energy if you count in the nukes' externalities like reprocessing, security, radioactive waste that are mostly dealt with by the government...
multijunction cells can also perform worse then single junction cells in non-optimum light conditions. A cell's output is effectively throttled by the lowest producing junction (similar to why it's so bad to allow a shadow to fall on part of an array). So if its cloudy or something and most of your light is reflected, you can get more power out of a low-wavelength single junction cell then you can out of a triple junction one.
Don't underestimate the hippies' addiction to smug.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Along the same vein, I justify driving my old, fuel-inefficient sports car by taking the dinosaurs' viewpoint. They were wiped out by global cooling, man! Releasing all this sequestered carbon dioxide is just my way of saving the planet. Someday when your grandchildren are living in the subtropical paradise that Antarctica will become, you'll thank me.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
In the US at least, nuclear power plant operators are required to pay into the Nuclear Waste Fund for just this purpose. "As of March 31, 2005, the total revenue paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund amounted to $24.9 billion. Of that amount, only $8.9 billion has been spent on program costs, leaving a balance of $16.02 billion that has been collected, but not applied to the used nuclear fuel disposal program." So there is a big (and growing) pile of money for whatever long-term solution we eventually settle on.
I am not sure of the degree to which security costs are externalized. I think they pay their own dedicated protective forces, or pay the NRC a security fee. But after 911, the National Guard also got involved, which sounds like an externality, though I don't know whether that was permanent.
While technically correct, a subsidy is more commonly used to describe an outright grant of money, with no requirement to pay it back. Such as the government subsidizing PBS, or the Arts programs, or giving grants for medical research. A loan guarantee, which is what the article is talking about, is not what most people would call a subsidy.
You could also say that solar technology is highly subsidized by the government, and otherwise isn't profitable.
Solar Financing, Subsidies, and Incentives
Some of them are financing, which if just a loan guarantee is what people are talking about for the nuclear industry in the future, but some are outright tax breaks (grants, or real subsidies).
A manufacturer does not sell a product for less than it costs to make. The cost to make it includes the cost of the energy that it takes to make it.
Assume I buy a 1 watt cell for $3 (No, you wouldn't buy a single watt cell). At $0.05/kwH, if half the cost was energy, it would take 30 kwH to make the cell. How much energy will I get out of it? Assume 6 hr/day, and the cell lasts for 20 years, then it would produce 44 kwH over its lifetime (1w x 6 hr/day x 365 day / year x 20 years).
Of course, I'm just making these numbers up, YMMV, etc. But, I can't see any way that it takes more energy to make than it will produce based on the math.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.