New High Efficiency Solar Cells Manufactured

With all the advances in technology, it is easy to think that small increments of change don’t mean much. When the technology could be something to change the energy balance of the world, people sit up and take notice. Sanyo is a company involved in all phases of the electronics realm. They have been one of the most important developers of high efficiency solar cells, and have come through with another development that ups the output from a given amount of light.

from Tech Connect

Managing to beat its own record (which was of 22.3%), Sanyo has now developed crystalline silicon-type solar cells which have an energy conversion efficiency in practical size (100 cm2 or more) of 23.0%. To achieve this value Sanyo improved the quality of the HIT solar cell junction which led to an increase in the open circuit voltage (Voc) from 0.725V to 0.729V, and also reduced the cells’ optical absorption and resistance losses.

In addition to increasing conversion efficiency, Sanyo continued to make advances in lowering the production cost of the photovoltaic system and the reduction in the use of raw materials such as silicon. Can we get an encore?

If the company could get production of these cells to be very quick and without problems, massive panels could be made that would make electricity easier to be a universal part of homes, with each home making the greatest part of the needs of those who inhabit it.

When I was a child, I was given a set of cells that made enough electricity to power a small AM-FM radio. I was a hit at school and it was great when the sun was out. When the clouds came, the radio went away however.  Now, the cells that are made are sensitive enough to generate 50% of their rated output when clouds come, and thus are much better at making the dream of an island house, freed from the grid, possible.

Let’s hope that scads of these become available at bargain basement prices soon.

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what can’t be done by the Sun can be done by nuclear energy…

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