solar cells

First Solar just signed an agreement with China to build the biggest solar power plant yet, according to a statement released today by the company. The 2-gigawatt plant in the Mongolian desert will generate enough electricity to power three million homes.

That's a heck of a lot of cadmium telluride, the semiconductor they use for their thin film cells.

Because solar intensity increases as you get closer to the equator, the same solar cell normally can't be equally effective in any given location. The UK firm Quantasol has devised a way of allowing solar cells to be fine-tuned according to their positional latitude, providing a substantial bump in efficiency.

This fall, Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard and his team will begin test flights of a prototype of Solar Impulse, a sun-powered plane designed to circumnavigate the globe without burning a drop of oil. Piccard wants the project to demonstrate the potential of green technology, and he’s feeling the pressure. "We still have to prove that this plane will fly," he says.

Hardly a week goes by these days without a new solar panel technology development in the news. You would think the country was plastered in solar sheets with all the work currently being done. Let's hope the stories soon turn to how we're going to make this all affordable enough to support widespread installations. In the meantime, today's innovation.

If you've been following our recent series of articles on solar cells, you've likely noticed the focus falls roughly into two categories: how to make the panels thinner, lighter and more flexible; and how to make the cells more efficient.

Back to the Future II was a bit of a disappointment in the face of the original. Granted, it was hamstrung by the throw-away ending of the first, but it did have that brilliant opening sequence with the hoverboards. How much did you want a hoverboard after seeing that? Not to mention, the computerized, self-drying jacket Marty puts on to blend in. The stuff of fantasy, right? At least for the latter, not for much longer.

One of the problems plaguing solar cells is their inability to absorb all of the light they receive. Currently, the bluish anti-reflective coating you see on most cells is 60 or 65 percent efficient, meaning nearly a third of the light is bounced back into the sky. That's because the coating is only able to absorb a narrow range of wavelengths from the sun's rays. Now, however, researchers at the University of Florida and Portland State University think they may have found a better way and their inspiration comes from an unlikely source: moth eyes.

Harvard University scientists have created solar cells made from a single wire that's just 300 nanometers wide. The technology could be used to provide electricity to tiny sensors, or lead to cheaper solar power.

Each of the tiny wires is made up of layers of silicon that basically take over the job of semiconductors in conventional solar cells. Eventually, the nanowires could be packaged together into larger arrays, and might even lead to less-expensive rooftop solar panels. This research is just one aspect of a larger effort to make solar power more competitive with cheaper sources of energy, and according to scientists, it's an important step forward.—Gregory Mone

Via Technology Review