Solar Update

In a January 7 report, MIT Technology Review magazine writer Mike Orcutt, under the headline “Promising New Solar Material Boosts Performance of Silicon,” said researchers believe “they’ve overcome an obstacle to making highly efficient solar devices by combining silicon with a new material.” The promise of this material — perovskites – is that it can be integrated into present production systems, rather than requiring manufacturers to create a new, expensive, production infrastructure, which is the obstacle of many new technologies. Orcutt reports that Dr. Henry Snaith, a University of Oxford physicist and perovskite researcher, has demonstrated a system that, by adding a few production steps, can combine a conventional silicon cell with a perovskite cell, which boosts the silicon cell efficiency by several percentage points.

Snaith believes improving power-conversion efficiency is the best way to make solar power cheaper.

The researcher believes it may be possible to make a combined, silicon-perovskite device that establishes a solar panel’s efficiency at 25%, which is higher than on-the-shelf silicon cell, which are about 17 – 20% efficient. Chris Case, the Oxford division’s chief technology officer, says it’s not unrealistic to think 28 – 30% efficiency is possible within just a few years.

The researchers also said perovskite-based technologies still face challenges, but believe they’re on track to deliver a commercial product by6 2017.

Read the full story at http://www.technologyreview.com/news/545161/promising-new-solar-material-boosts-performance-of-silicon/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20160108