New Solar Record 42.8%


The old record of 40.7% efficiency was set just 6 months ago. Now now a couple of professors at the University of Delaware (pictured above) upped the bar by 2.1 percent to a grand total of 42.8%. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has been funding research in hopes of getting efficiency up to 50 percent. If they keep this rate up we should get there in about two years.

Source:
The Delaware Business Ledger, Solar breakthrough outlined, Friday, July 27, 2007 4:05 PM EDT
Chris Honsberg, 50% Solar Cells

Solar Power at 1/2, 1/4, 1/8.... the Cost?


From MiT's technology review:

Soliant has designed a solar concentrator that tracks the sun throughout the day but is lighter and not pole-mounted. The system fits in a rectangular frame and is mounted to the roof with the same hardware that's used for conventional flat solar panels. Yet the devices will likely cost half as much as a conventional solar panel, says Hines. A second-generation design, which concentrates light more and uses better photovoltaics, could cost a quarter as much.

Possibly 1/4th the price? It would be interesting to see what would happen if these concentrators are joined with the recently developed solar cells that have a 40.7% efficiency and show promise of a whopping 58% efficiency.



Thanks to a shortage of polysilicon plants the cost of silicon has gone up from $9 in 2001 to a current price of $60. Once more plants are built and the solar industry becomes established we will likely see another drop in solar prices. What this means in dollars and cents will be covered in more depth in the future. But there is certainly lots of potential in the solar industry.

So how much land would be required to power the world with solar? The squares in the map below is the amount of land that would be required to produce 20 terawatts. That's enough to give 10 billion people all the power they need.



What is more is that these squares represent solar cells at 10% efficiency. If we are converting at 58% efficiency then that means these squares are nearly six times the amount of land needed to power the planet.

Source:
MiT's Technology Review, Solar Power at Half the Cost, A new roof-mounted system that concentrates sunlight could cut the price of photovoltaics., Kevin Bullis, Friday, May 11, 2007
Physorg.com, 40% efficient solar cells to be used for solar electricity, Lisa Zyga
King, R. R., Law, D. C., Edmondson, K. M., Fetzer, C. M., Kinsey, G. S., Yoon, H., Sherif, R. A., and Karam, N. H. “40% efficient metamorphic GaInP/GaInAs/Ge multijunction solar cells.” Applied Physics Letters 90, 183516 (2007).
Silicon Shortage Stalls Solar John Gartner, Wired News, 28 March 2005. Retrieved 4 September 2006.
Shining a light on solar-power costs
Cnet, Solar systems don't come cheap, so HelioVolt is teaming with Exceltech to cut back on the installation costs., Michael Kanellos
Richard E. Smalley, Future Global Energy Prosperity: The Terawatt Challenge
Silicon shortage sends solar sky-high, SOLAR POWER — by Nick Rosen, 02 Nov 2006
Department of Energy, New World Record Achieved in Solar Cell Technology, December 5, 2006

Vatican starts fighting climate change


The Catholic News Service is reporting that the Paul VI audience hall is going to be powered completely by solar power. Pier Carlo Cuscianna, the head of the Vatican's department of technical services, wrote in a May 23 article in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that safe guarding the environment was "one of the most important challenges of our century." From CNS:

The Italian engineer said appeals by Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II to respect nature inspired him to help power the Vatican's energy needs with renewable resources.

He recalled how, in his 2007 World Day of Peace message, Pope Benedict warned of "the increasingly serious problem of energy supplies" that was leading to "an unprecedented race" for the earth's resources.

Cuscianna also found inspiration from Pope John Paul's 1990 peace message, dedicated in its entirety to the need to respect God's creation.

"We cannot continue to use the goods of the earth as we have in the past," the pope wrote, calling for "a new ecological awareness" that leads to "concrete programs and initiatives."

Source:
Catholic News Service, VATICAN LETTER May-25-2007 (730 words) Going green: Vatican expands mission to saving planet, not just souls, Carol Glatz and Alicia Ambrosio