Australian Scientists Create World’s Most Efficient Solar Cells
Scientists at the University of New South Wales have set a new world record by creating the first silicon solar cell to achieve 25% efficiency.
Team leader, Prof. Martin Green of the university’s ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence, says their world-beating solar cell is now a massive six percent more efficient than the next best technology. The record edges the current generation of solar cell technology closer to the theoretical limit of 29% efficiency.
The rise in efficiency is due to new knowledge about the composition of sunlight, leading to an improvement in the solar cell’s ability to capture more energy at the extremes of the solar light spectrum. According to Green, “These light-trapping features make our cells act as if they were much thicker than they are. This already has had an important spin-off in allowing us to work with CSG Solar to develop commercial ‘thin-film’ silicon-on-glass solar cells that are over 100 times thinner than conventional silicon cells.”
Negotiations for commercial production of the latest advancement are already underway, and could soon lead to a new generation of low cost, high energy output solar cells.
Image Credit – Samuele Storari via flickr.com on a Creative Commons license
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October 26th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
That should read world’s most efficient SILICON solar cell. People have been making more complex (and expensive) multijunction solar cells with efficiencies over 30% for a decade now.
October 26th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
“…over 100 times thinner than conventional silicon cells.”
This point is much more important than a 6% efficiency increase. Silcon is expensive. If this claim is true, silicon solar cells will drop dramatically in price.
October 26th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
No. Silicon is cheap. This is one of the reasons why it is being used to produce solar cells. What is not cheap is the processing of silicon to make solar cells.
The question is more whether the processes used to make thin film solar cells is cheaper than cutting cells from a single crystal of silicon. One might hope that with economies of scale, it will be cheaper. But, there are several other issues at work including encapsulation and how robust a solar array is in the real world.
October 26th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I’m pretty certain that solar cells have already broken the 40% efficiency mark…unless this is a very specific type of solar cell (which the article doesn’t elaborate on).
October 26th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
I find it amazing that in 2008 we can still be discovering new things about sunlight.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:40 am
I agree with Tim about discovering new aspects of sunlight. It is pretty amazing, but when there’s a will, there’s a way. There are still many things to know about our world and universe, but until we invest the mindpower, we won’t know what we don’t know.
It’s exciting to watch these new discoveries every day though. If you have any friends who doubt the capacity of alternative technologies to solve our energy problems, please direct them to this site.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Hasn’t the 40%-45% efficiency been gained by duPont?
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=49483
October 27th, 2008 at 11:32 am
It is clear they are discussing silicon technology, because the other versions, not necessarily silicon, have already broken several efficiency barriers. Why is it that Australian scientists continue to work with just Gallium, Indium, and the mixes of several other conductive elements? Why not concentrate on light absorption via nitrites/ or various nitrogen components?? When nitrogen is added to the mix, it creates significantly more current, but is not well conducted to the edges,and because the compound absorbs nearly all the light spectrum? In Spring, 2008, scientists at U. Berkeley, CA USA discovered this surprising result. Their difficulty was to get the resulting crystals to lie down so it could be manufactured! So 25% is a sad joke when near 98% efficiency of light spectrum absorption is possible.
Who determined that the maximum absorption rate was 29%? When did this become your benchmark? Think out of the box. gentlemen! You have much better opportunity when you see the benefits of reducing costs per chip, than increasing the efficiency of a compound that is inferior to other combinations. You might even try to get compounding in space on the space-lab to develop improved structural advantage of your compounding so that industry could advance a few decades! You must understand that gravity has an impact on crystal formation and atomic compound structuring…I recommend you test those proposed items! Sincerely, Gregor Smith Oklahoma City, OK USA gregors@att.net
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
i think it would be awesome if you could combine solar photovoltic energy and solar heat pipe energy
November 4th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
This is nice. It is only 1% more then the Israelian Uniniversity in Tel Aviv. Satalites solar panals aquire 50%. Well there is a price to that.
What is your price per watt. How much of the recources are used. And can you produce tera watts before 2040?
Then we talk again.
November 8th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
“i think it would be awesome if you could combine solar photovoltic energy and solar heat pipe energy”
There is one company experimenting with this idea. They are running into manufacturing and assembly issues. Currently the cost is higher then seperate PV and solar hot water.
Combining the technologies is actually a very good thing as the water cools the PV panels and raises their efficiency. A typical PV during the prime part of the day can get as hots a 140-160 degrees. Backed with water tubes, it cools to 100-120 and efficiency goes up by 10-15%
October 25th, 2009 at 7:11 am
[...] rapid improvements. Last year researchers at the University of South Wales in Australia announced the first silicon cell to reach 25% conversion efficiency, and this summer that SunTech announced a solar conversion efficiency of 15.6% for its [...]