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from the every-day-a-bit-better-and-brighter dept.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51799503
Today's average commercial solar panel converts 17-19% of the light energy hitting it to electricity. This is up from 12% just 10 years ago. But what if we could boost this to 30%? More efficient solar cells mean we could get much more than today's 2.4% of global electricity supply from the sun.
Solar is already the world's fastest growing energy technology. Ten years ago, there were only 20 gigawatts of installed solar capacity globally - one gigawatt being roughly the output of a single large power station. By the end of last year, the world's installed solar power had jumped to about 600 gigawatts.
[...] But wafer-based crystalline silicon is bumping pretty close to its theoretical maximum efficiency. The Shockley-Queisser limit marks the maximum efficiency for a solar cell made from just one material, and for silicon this is about 32%. However, combining six different materials into what is called a multi-junction cell can push efficiency as high as 47%.
[...] Another way to break through this limit, is to use lenses to magnify the sunlight falling on the solar cell, an approach called concentrated solar. But this is an expensive way to produce electricity, and is mainly useful on satellites. "Not anything you would see on anybody's roof in the next decade," laughs Dr Nancy Haegel, director of materials science at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.
[...] The fastest improving solar technology is called perovskites - named after Count Lev Alekseevich von Perovski, a 19th Century Russian mineralogist. These have a particular crystal structure that is good for solar absorption. Thin films, around 300 nanometres (much thinner than a human hair) can be made inexpensively from solutions - allowing them to be easily applied as a coating to buildings, cars or even clothing. Perovskites also work better than silicon at lower lighting intensities, on cloudy days or for indoors. You can print them using an inkjet printer, says Dr Konrad Wojciechowski, scientific director at Saule Technologies, based in Oxford and Warsaw. "Paint on a substrate, and you have a photovoltaic device," he says.
[...] From such small gains - to the use of concentrated solar and perovskites - solar tech is in a race to raise efficiency and push down costs. "Spanning this magical number 30%, this is where the solar cell industry could really make a very big difference," says Swift Solar's Max Hoerantner.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @07:15PM (10 children)
They've really decided to suck govt cock these days. The bbc used to be independent but now they shit themselves and write puff pieces about filo pastry recipes and what clouds look like if you squint your eyes. Here is the only evidence of any research done for this artice: "That efficiency might be coming. There is a worldwide race, from San Francisco to Shenzhen, to make a more efficient solar cell." That's it - the whole bbc article is based on this - and be grateful, that's more than average.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Saturday May 02 2020, @08:08PM (6 children)
> They've really decided to suck govt cock these days.
You know, I said the same thing about the BBC back in the 90s (and in protest, I never had nor paid for a "TV licence". I will not voluntary pay to be lied to).
Thing is, I noticed it back in the 90s, and now in the 2020's people are noticing it again, about different topics. Chances are if they behave like a government mouthpiece now, and they behaved the same way back in the 90s, they probably were always a government mouthpiece. As such it not surprise anyone that they are biased, and their news should be take with the same suspicion as any state media would.
You have to use your brain and think/analise about whether what you hear is likely to be truthful. At the end of the day you can be pretty certain others are lying to you for their benefit every day, and act accordingly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @08:19PM (5 children)
*analize
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 02 2020, @08:37PM (4 children)
Any post correcting a typo will have an unintentional typo in it as well. It follows from the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Standard Mdoel.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Saturday May 02 2020, @08:56PM (3 children)
*analyse
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @09:28PM (1 child)
Analyze / analize - really it depends on the context.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday May 03 2020, @02:47AM
And then there's AnnaLisa.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @09:29PM
*anal-eyes
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @10:51PM (2 children)
The BBC has literally never been independent. They were founded as a government propaganda mouthpiece, and remain as such.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @11:19PM
I think they have become especially lame through the Brexit process. It's as if someone leaned on them(*) and reminded them they're all from the same Eton/Oxford stock and so how about not writing critical pieces any more and start putting videos of cats on every page.
(*) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/09/boris-johnson-looking-at-abolishing-tv-licence-fee-for-bbc [theguardian.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @11:24PM
"Just one in 100 members of the UK public was educated at Oxbridge, however graduates from those two universities make up 75% of senior judges, 59% of cabinet posts, 57% of permanent secretaries, 50% of diplomatics, 47% of newspaper columnists, 44% of public body chairs and 33% of BBC executives. "
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/aug/28/elitism-in-britain-breakdown-by-profession [theguardian.com]