Now that's what I'm talking about! The old cliche saying, 'where there's a will, there's a way', is often not far from the mark - and this exciting announcement by the U.S. Department of Energy is proof positive.
The headline reads: "New World Record Achieved in Solar Cell Technology. New Solar Cell Breaks the “40 Percent Efficient” Sunlight-to-Electricity Barrier."
Considering most solar cells today fit within the 12 to 18 percent efficiency range, that's a significant leap. Traditional cells absorb the suns rays 'as they fall', but this new cell technology uses an optical concentrator to squeeze more energy out of sunlight.
Attaining a 40 percent efficient concentrating solar cell means having another technology pathway for producing cost-effective solar electricity. Almost all of today’s solar cell modules do not concentrate sunlight but use only what the sun produces naturally, what researchers call “one sun insolation,” which achieves an efficiency of 12 to 18 percent. However, by using an optical concentrator, sunlight intensity can be increased, squeezing more electricity out of a single solar cell.The future of solar is looking brighter (sorry, couldn't resist). Hopefully it will discourage certain people from their last ditch approach to tackling global warming - that of dirtying up the atmosphere to reduce the amount of light reaching the earth...The 40.7 percent cell was developed using a unique structure called a multi-junction solar cell. This type of cell achieves a higher efficiency by capturing more of the solar spectrum. In a multi-junction cell, individual cells are made of layers, where each layer captures part of the sunlight passing through the cell. This allows the cell to get more energy from the sun’s light.
