German Researchers Break Solar Cell Efficiency Record
A new year, a new solar cell efficiency record is broken. German researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems have built a solar cell with 41.1% efficiency, besting the previous record of 40.8% efficiency set by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The three-layer gallium-indium-phosphide, gallium-indium-arsenide, and germanium cell broke the record when researchers concentrated sunlight onto it 454 times.
The cell’s materials are expensive compared to silicon, but are significantly more efficient. This makes the Fraunhofer metamorphic triple-junction cell a candidate for concentrated solar installations, which require fewer materials than traditional installations.
Companies currently working on concentrated solar installations include SolFocus and Concentrix.
Photo Credit: Fraunhofer ISE
This is inaccurate. The record was set last year by American scientists, at 42.8%, a record which still stands.
http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2008/jul/solar072307.html
Imagine if we had devised a Manhattan Project (which developed the atomic bomb) to push the envelope of solar technology. How far along would be be, and what level of conversion efficiency could we have achieved by now?
And while there will be a increased level of commitment in the coming years, the world has lost trillions in the financial meltdown and governments will be hard pressed to fund research at levels we had all hoped for.
@ GP but you forgot all the trillions of dollars spent protecting a soon to be empty hole in the ground (Middle East) when China increases it’s popoulation by 1 billion and takes all “our” oil. Just imagine what we could have done with all that war money. We could have been almost oil free but now look at the mess we are in.
Indeed. Our government in the UK is in a right mess also. All the money spent bombing other countries would have been better spent building an infrastructure for renewable energy. Then we wouldn’t have this need for oil quite as much