Researchers at the University of Michigan have found a way to stack solution-processed organic solar cells on top of vacuum-processed cells, creating an tandem solar cell with 15% efficiency.
"For the last couple of years, efficiency for organic photo-voltaics was stuck around 11 to 12%," said Michigan physicist Xiaozhou Che.
The top solution-processed non-fullerene-acceptor cell absorbs infra-red up to 950nm, and the bottom fullerene-based cell absorbs visible light starting at 350nm.
"By themselves, the cells achieve 10 to 11% efficiency. When we stack them together, we increase light absorption and efficiency improves to 15% with an anti-reflection coating," said Che [...]
High fabrication yield organic tandem photovoltaics combining vacuum- and solution-processed subcells with 15% efficiency (DOI: 10.1038/s41560-018-0134-z) (DX)
(Score: 4, Informative) by FakeBeldin on Monday April 30 2018, @08:05AM (3 children)
Exactly, I was also missing context on these numbers. From wiki [sigcomm.org]
- Single p-n junction crystalline silicon: approaching 33.16% (theoretical limit)
- Lab result for silicon: 25.6%
- Lab result for 4 junction (GaInP/GaAs/GaInAsP/GaInAs): 46.1%
- Lab result for epitaxial waver cells: >20%
- Lab result for 3-junction: 30.2%
Or, see this graph [wikimedia.org].
Nutshell: It's an emerging tech, far behind older tech in terms of efficiency.
Someone else is welcome to summarise what your current solar panel is actually achieving, these are all lab results.
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Monday April 30 2018, @10:14AM (2 children)
Sorry, no experience figures (I don't own solar cells), but according to this link: [energysage.com]
So those experimental cells are at the lower end of the efficiency range of typical commercially available solar panels.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday April 30 2018, @10:53AM (1 child)
True, but the organic PV are much cheaper/affordable l. Now, if they reach a decent efficiency (and perhaps let life duration), they could be another solution available in the mix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @01:35PM
The press release [brightsurf.com] says the advantages of organic solar cells are that they're flexible and that they're cheap to manufacture.