Originally published on CleanTechnica. Imagine a process where underwater solar cells could one day play a key role in fighting climate change. Stanford engineers did just that. They have provided design principles to build energy efficient, corrosion-protected solar cells. The impacts of this research are far-reaching for the solar industry and the battle against climate
Quickly learn how solar power works as well as a number of fun facts in the article and videos below. Solar power is taking the world by storm. The cost of solar panels has come down so much that hundreds of millions of people can probably benefit financially from going solar. It’s an exciting time,
In the close race for PV efficiency, copper indium gallium (di)selenide cells have taken the lead again in tests at the Atsugi Research Center in Kanagawa, Japan. The Fraunhofer Institute, Europe’s largest application-oriented research organization, has independently verified the results. A Solar Frontier 0.5cm2 CIS configuration achieved 20.9% conversion efficiency, a world record for thin-film
The Laboratory for Photovoltaics at the University of Luxembourg has recently devised a new method to observe the causes of and prevent solar cell degradation before solar cell production is even finished. This will have huge effects on the solar cell manufacturing industry because of how fast chemical damage to solar cells can happen,
The U.S. company Solar Junction set the gold standard for solar cell efficiency last year at 43.5 percent, a worldwide mark that it has just shattered with a new solar cell efficiency record of 44 percent. This baby ain’t no hothouse flower, either. All the lab work is behind it and it’s ready for
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 organic photovoltaic cell (OPV). Professor
Nano-flowers, newly created structures composed of germanium sulfide (GeS), have the potential to open the door to next-generation solar cells and energy storage devices. These ‘flowers’, created by researchers from North Carolina State University out of a semiconducting material, feature an enormous surface area, thanks to being covered in many extremely thin petals. “Creating
Here are two recent news stories on black silicon solar cells getting efficiency boosts from German and US scientists, courtesy Solar Love: Black Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency Doubled While conventional solar cells can absorb a good portion of the Sun’s light, they completely miss the boat on getting anything from the infrared spectrum. But black
A U.S. solar startup named Twin Creeks Technologies just “unstealthed” yesterday, and it did so in a big way. The solar startup is looking to make solar considerably cheaper with breakthrough/disruptive changes to the solar cell manufacturing process. There’s more detail on this solar startup’s cost-cutting solar cell manufacturing process available on sister site
I want to start covering clean energy news much more here on Planetsave, but as they say, “so much to do, so little time.” Also, since we cover that extensively on sister site CleanTechnica, I just sort of assume you all can easily pop over there and subscribe to that page for news on this
