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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday December 21 2017, @12:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the renewable-sources-FTW dept.

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Recently, Solartech Universal made headlines as part of solar machine maker Meyer Burger's heterojunction (HJT) solar cell and SmartWire (SWT) hardware announcements. Meyer Burger announced their new hardware manufacturing lines using a Solartech Universal solar panel. The 'champion module' hit 334.9W – a 20.5% solar panel efficiency. The cells used in the panel hit as high as 24.02% – higher than JinkoSolar's 23.45% (albeit with a different cell type).

Solartech Universal says this panel should be available in 2018 as the company works through the challenges of integrating the new manufacturing hardware into the current line (see Solartech Universal panel assembly video at end of article). The specification page for the panel family is available on the website – it peaks at 330W models, and notes being available soon.

[...] Meyer Burger calls heterojunction 'the Solar Cell of the Future (pdf).' An actual heterojunction solar cell just hit 26.6% efficiency in November. Again, well beyond, Jinko's 23.45%. This greater efficiency is partially because of additional layers of solar material – amorphous silicon – that grabs a different wavelength of light to make electricity.

Source: https://electrek.co/2017/12/19/florida-company-solar-cell-of-the-future-500w-heterojunction/


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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday December 21 2017, @12:30AM (4 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday December 21 2017, @12:30AM (#612641) Journal

    Wiki has a time line of solar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_solar_cells [wikipedia.org]

    Its nice to see some of the 10 and 20 years away stuff starting to finally come to market. 40% solar efficiency was claimed back in 2006.

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @05:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @05:39AM (#612704)

    A basic (if not a bit dated) graph of efficiency is here https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/PVeff%28rev171030%29.jpg [wikimedia.org] but there were 24% efficient solar cells (same efficiency as these) available in 1987. The problem is that making them was too expensive, just like the near-50% ones are today. The primary measure of solar cells used by people actually installing them is the Dollar per Watt (or Watt-peak). In that case, you can usually get much more bang for the buck by installing more less-efficient cells compared to fewer more-efficient cells.

  • (Score: 2) by Entropy on Thursday December 21 2017, @04:15PM (2 children)

    by Entropy (4228) on Thursday December 21 2017, @04:15PM (#612824)

    Too bad you can't actually buy any of the cheap solar cells announced. Either because they are for power companies only, or are in the future. Solar cells have had a breakeven(for the investment) of about 15-20 years for quite a long time now which is pretty crappy.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday December 21 2017, @05:16PM (1 child)

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday December 21 2017, @05:16PM (#612850)

      Depends on where you live. People in hot areas with expensive electricity routinely get around a 7-year return. That would probably be a lot less if installation costs weren't half the initial bill.

      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 21 2017, @07:03PM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday December 21 2017, @07:03PM (#612897) Journal

        The costs of solar have fallen dramatically in the last 5 years. Grid parity in America was achieved in something like 30 states a couple years ago. Also, it's worth bearing in mind that most solar panels are rated for 30 years, so if your break-even is 7 years then that's still 23 years of gravy. You could plow the 23 years of savings on electricity into a stock index portfolio and build a nice little nest egg for retirement.

        Utilities have been paying attention. That's why they're pressuring state legislatures to abolish net metering, because if your solar array generates more power than you use, they have to cut you a check every month. At that point the grid that used to be the source of their natural monopoly becomes an anchor dragging their balance sheet down into the abyss. Why would you want to spend all the money to maintain the grid if you wind up having to pay the people who are dumping power onto it? You lose twice.

        Debt rating agencies have been paying attention, also. They downgraded utility debt a couple years ago, and that used to be one of the bedrock, most stable financial investments you could make.

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