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At present, the best commercial solar cells convert between 17 per cent and 19 per cent of the sun's energy into electricity. UNSW's technique, patented t
by sbierwagen 14y ago
At present, the best commercial solar cells convert between
17 per cent and 19 per cent of the sun's energy into
electricity. UNSW's technique, patented this year, should
produce efficiencies of between 21 per cent and 23 per cent.
- capisce 14y agoWhile being able to use significantly cheaper silicon of poorer quality, was the breakthrough as far as I gathered.
- just2n 14y agoA quick TLDR from the article: The breakthrough involves using hydrogen atoms to counter defects in silicon cells ... [so that] poor quality silicon can be made to perform like high quality wafers. A 25% improvement to efficiency is a big deal. Getting that improvement with cheap silicon makes this a huge win. But there's no reference to patents or to research demonstrating these claims, so I don't know what to think.
- zimbatm 14y agoWhat's the cost of adding these hydrogen atoms though. Too bad they're not talking about that in the article.
- nairboon 14y agoHow is this a breakthrough when SunPower has been selling 21.5% modules? http://us.sunpowercorp.com/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=Content-Type&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobheadervalue2=inline%3B+filename%3Dsp_X21_335_345_ds_en_ltr_504828A_040513.pdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1300286718354&ssbinary=true http://us.sunpowercorp.com/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&... http://us.sunpowercorp.com/homes/products-services/solar-panels/x-series/ http://us.sunpowercorp.com/homes/products-services/solar-pan...
- vicaya 14y agoIf you look at your own links, you'll see that these are monocrystalline panels, which are a lot more expensive than the much cheaper polycrystalline panels, which the research targets.