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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:34AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:34AM (#612685)
    Actually solar panels tend to get less efficient the hotter they get. So when the weather is hot they might be more efficient in non-optimal alignments since they receive less sunlight and don't get as hot ;).
  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:45PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:45PM (#612774)

    That's a rare case. When you're looking at TCO, the cost of purchasing, installing and maintaining a tracking mount is going to (usually) be higher than just slapping in the necessary extra fixed panels. Though, if you do put in the tracking mount, then you can optimize for temperature as well as sun-angle - for the cost of some extra sensors and software development.

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