1New Solar Photovoltaic Cell Efficiency Record: 42.8%

A consortium of research teams has achieved a new record in photovoltaic cell efficiency.

5:14 p.m., July 23, 2007-- Using a novel technology that adds multiple innovations to a very high-performance crystalline silicon solar cell platform, a consortium led by the University of Delaware has achieved a record-breaking combined solar cell efficiency of 42.8 percent from sunlight at standard terrestrial conditions.

That number is a significant advance from the current record of 40.7 percent announced in December and demonstrates an important milestone on the path to the 50 percent efficiency goal set by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In November 2005, the UD-led consortium received approximately $13 million in funding for the initial phases of the DARPA Very High Efficiency Solar Cell (VHESC) program to develop affordable portable solar cell battery chargers.

Combined with the demonstrated efficiency performance of the very high efficiency solar cells' spectral splitting optics, which is more than 93 percent, these recent results put the pieces in place for a solar cell module with a net efficiency 30 percent greater than any previous module efficiency and twice the efficiency of state-of-the-art silicon solar cell modules.

What I want to know: Are these materials inherently more or less expensive to manufacture for unit area than existing silicon photovoltaics? Do these materials lend themselves to greater cost reductions?

Big money is going to go into creation of a manufacturing prototype.

As a result of the consortium's technical performance, DARPA is initiating the next phase of the program by funding the newly formed DuPont-University of Delaware VHESC Consortium to transition the lab-scale work to an engineering and manufacturing prototype model. This three-year effort could be worth as much as $100 million, including industry cost-share.

The professors leading this effort are aiming for 50% efficiency.

The ground-breaking research was led by Allen Barnett, principal investigator and UD professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Christiana Honsberg, co-principal investigator and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. The two direct the University's High Performance Solar Power Program and will continue working to achieve 50 percent efficiency, a benchmark that when reached would mean a doubling of the efficiency of terrestrial solar cells based around a silicon platform within a 50-month span.

Some are skeptical over whether solar electric energy will ever amount to much after decades of failing to become cost competitive. But my view is that many breakthroughs took decades to achieve. The fact that researchers have been searching for cheaper photovoltaic materials for decades isn't an argument against the feasibility of this quest. Rather, the number of first class minds pursuing this quest strongly suggests the ultimate goal of cheap and high efficiency photovoltaics is achievable.

By Randall Parker at 2007 July 25 09:40 PM  Energy Solar | TrackBack