A new, relatively high-voltage solar cell that can charge the li-ion batteries of portable electronics such as e-book readers and cellphones in partial shade has been created by the University of Warwick and Molecular Solar. This type of solar cell is called an organic solar cell, plastic solar cell, or … [continued]
Some more cleantech news from around the interwebs: […]
Solar cells are awesome, and LEDs are awesome, but what about solar cells that also act like LEDs — double awesome? It seems so, and perhaps most notably, such solar cells also have increased voltage. The purpose of solar cells is to capture as much light as possible and … [continued]
We’ve published about 24 solar energy stories in the past week. In addition to those, here are some other top solar stories from around the interwebs (be sure to catch the picture at the bottom): Solar Market Research McKinsey & Company projects that solar is entering a period of … [continued]
“Scientists boosted the significance of tandem polymer solar cells by successfully testing cells with low-bandgap polymers that achieved certified conversion efficiencies of 8.62 ± 0.3% with respect to standard terrestrial reporting conditions,” the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announced today. “Further, after the researchers incorporated a new infrared-absorbing polymer … [continued]
Because of all the media attention about solar power, most people think of photovoltaic (PV) solar panels. People in or on the fringe of the clean energy business might know about the Chinese’ so called “dumping” of low cost PV panels onto the U. S. market; about how schools … [continued]
Utilities and independent power producers with ready access to the US bond market are ramping up their project development and ownership activities, and that may open up opportunities for other industry participants to follow suit. Recent developments indicate that institutional investors may have an appetite for solar energy bonds, as well.
Research and analysis of solar PV manufacturing costs and international trade flows shows that Chinese silicon solar PV manufacturers have only a slight cost advantage on their US counterparts, and that excludes transportation costs, the effect of inflation rate differentials and other factors.
Furthermore, the extraordinary rise in Chinese exports of silicon solar PV cells and panels to the US could only be sustained with the support of massive government subsidies.
Deep in the heart of Silicon Valley, an office building home to Google is about to become a prototype for a cleantech product that’s capable of harvesting the sun’s power in a whole new way.
The product in question is EnFocus Engineering’s Diamond-Power panel—a high-tech module that’s one part skylight, one part solar panel.
Scientists at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) reported “the first solar cell that produces a photocurrent that has an external quantum efficiency greater than 100 percent when photoexcited with photons from the high energy region of the solar spectrum” at the end of last week. Promising news. More from NREL: The … [continued]
