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Caltech Makes Flexible, 86% Efficient Solar Arrays
strredwolf writes "Caltech has released a flexible solar array that converts 95% of single-wavelength incandescent light and 86% of all sunlight into electricity. Instead of being flat-panel, they stand thin silicon wires in a plastic substrate that scatters the light onto them. The total composition is 98% plastic, 2% wire — the amount of silicon used is 1/50th that of ordinary panels. So as soon as they can get these to market, solar could be very viable and cheap to produce." Update: 03/01 21:02 GMT by KD : Reader axelrosen points out evidence that the 80%+ efficiency figure is wrong. MIT's Tech Review, in covering the Caltech announcement, says that the new panel's efficiency is in the 15%-20% range — which is competitive with the current state of the art. And the Caltech panel should be far cheaper to manufacture.
All these idiots working on solar panels when what is really needed is overcast panels to get power from gloomy days when you use more light bulbs.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
If we set up solar devices so that they can float in water and function as an interconnected grid, we could drape a network of them over the Pacific Garbage Patch so no one would notice it.
This is exactly the kind of innovation the U.S. needs for carbon-friendly jobs.
Carbon friendly?! Dude, they are planning to reduce the amount of carbon being released. That's like calling Auschwitz "Jew friendly."
Well, getting hot water out of it is a feature, not a bug.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Actually it's spot-on. See, carbon-friendly means not turning the carbon into carbon dioxide. That is, it means not gassing the carbon. I think you would call not gassing Jews Jew-friendly.
Yeah, but it has to function after ten years too.
'94 Saturn ... parked in the Arizona sun for many years ... multiple electronics failures ... engine oil leak
Survived the sunlight just fine
It sure sounds it.
*ducks*
But we won't nee... ohhh.
There's plastic, and then there's plastic. Some modern plastics are quite explosive.
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You hook a lightbulb up to a solar panel, and it will keep glowing forever. Obviously this has to be done in a completely sealed box so that none of the light escapes, so you are forbidden from checking that the light is still glowing.
Some would say it's useless, but it improves the quality of life of physicists' cats quite dramatically.
Talking of Nazis, did you know that every other use of an apostrophe in your first sentence was incorrect?
Slashdot, please think of the children that will be disappointed by this article.
Us grownups can see through the PR-speak, but kids can't.
We can see that this loose talk of high efficiencies is just that-- only part of the story.
It's swell that these gizmos have a 97% absorption efficiency, but that's only the front end.
The actual cell, which converts the light to electricity, is no different-- about 16% efficient, due
to the many mismatches in energy levels and the unavoidable phonon products.
Plus the business about needing less silicon is not spreadsheet-worthy. The actual bulk silicon is not a large part of the cost.
Even if they got the silicon usage down to 0%, the cost would not come down very much if at all.
Also the economic predictions are unrealistic. Nothing that's better has ever sold for less than 5% under the price of the competition. No company can afford to leave money on the table.
Let's get this over with:
As any discussion grows longer, the probability of anything being mentioned or pointed out approaches 1. The exception being Soviet Russia, where 1 approaches you.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.