Innovative Use of Plastics Could Cheaply Double Solar Cell Output

doug141 writes "In standard solar cells, much energy is lost (as heat) from photons mismatched to the capability of silicon to capture them. A new technique uses a pentacene layer to down-convert each hot (un-captureable) electron to two electrons that can be captured by standard silicon cells." You can read more at the University of Texas research group's web page.

Comments

Re:Power companies

[russotto]

I wonder if there would be resistance from power companies if people were able to put cheap solar panels on their houses, or if they would buy up all the patents so you had to buy your panels from them.

They'd just institute daylight-based pricing. Use of electricity during the day = $0.05/kWh. Use of electricity an night = $0.50/kWh. Now you've got to solve the battery problem AND the solar panel problem.

Improving solar cells

[JohnWiney]

Slashdot seems to post a lot of stories about improved solar cells, but solar cells never seem to improve.

Re:Improving solar cells

[Waffle Iron]

Slashdot seems to post a lot of stories about improved solar cells, but solar cells never seem to improve.

True, but only if you define a double-digit percentage drop in unit price every year as "not improving".

Re:Power companies

[fyngyrz]

They'd just institute daylight-based pricing. Use of electricity during the day = $0.05/kWh. Use of electricity an night = $0.50/kWh. Now you've got to solve the battery problem AND the solar panel problem.

Nah, then all you need is batteries and a charging and inverter system. No solar panels at all. Because all you'd have to do is store electricity from the company during the day, and use it at night or when the power is down. Right now, there's no great price advantage to doing this, but the second the day and night prices diverge significantly, there would be. And THEN, if they caught on and changed it back, all you'd need to add would be panels. So this would be a very bad move for the power companies.

A lost opportunity

[WindBourne]

We use FIT and other means of subsidies to drive solar and wind, but ignore other solutions. However, in just about every single case, it is a retrofit, which is expensive. But, there is a simple solution for all of this.

America, or even states, could require that all new homes and buildings under 4 stories, have 50% or possibly 100% of their HVAC (heating and AC required) come from on-site AE. This would actually encourage several things:
1) a number of contractors will simply throw up solar panels equal to the amount.
2) a number of other contractors would heavily insulate and drop the energy needs to the point, where a MINIMAL amount of AE is needed.
3) a number would try something like geo-thermal HVAC combined with 2 to allow them to drop it to one panel.

Basically, by adding this requirement, it would change the NEW buildings and separate them from the old ones. Considering the number of foreclosures that we have now, the last thing that we really need are new buildings that compete with many of these foreclosed buildings. At the same time, it pushes various AE without loads of incentives, while allowing contractor to move to whatever direction is economical and will sell.