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Recent discovery may give solar cells 1000% more power
- LinuxBender 5y agoHow much impact does this configuration and composition have on cost, longevity and thermal efficiency?
- retrac 5y agoI can't understand the headline. The typical solar panel is like 15% efficient. 1000% more power from such a panel would be thermodynamically impossible.
- Arnt 5y agoI think they're shifting the goalposts by basically increasing the density of panels per area well beyond 100%. They're extracting x% of the energy in the light and letting 100-x-y% of the light pass through (y being nonzero), then the light reaches another layer which extracts …
- ncmncm 5y agoIt's actually much easier than you imagine. They are not comparing to silicon solar panels. They are comparing to a single layer of their own material, which seems to extract much less than 15%. So, if one layer nets 1%, adding 100 layers might be getting them to 10%. If they manage to get the yield up, maybe they could exceed 30%, which would make it a big deal. Or to 20%, but much more cheaply. But they are not there yet, and might not get there. That's research. Don't expect to buy any for several years after that.
- ohiovr 5y agoThat is because it is click bait.
- mikewarot 5y agoThey've moved the goalposts. It is 10x the power from a really poor lab prototype, to a not quite as bad lab prototype. Someday it might result in something economically useful, right now it's mostly clickbait.
- fallingfrog 5y agoMisleading headline. “ When conducting the photoelectric measurements, the new material was irradiated with laser light. The result was unexpected: compared to pure barium titanate of a similar thickness, the current flow was up to 10 times stronger” So, 10x compared to pure barium titanite, not compared with silicon. Silicon is already more than 10% efficient, so an increase of 1000% would be impossible.