Using two types of “designer” quantum dots, researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico, are creating double-pane solar windows that generate electricity with greater efficiency and create shading and insulation for good measure. It’s all made possible by a new window architecture which utilizes two different layers of low-cost quantum dots tuned to absorb different parts of the solar spectrum.
Thermochromic windows capable of converting sunlight into electricity at a high efficiency have been developed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
A recent study, affiliated with Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) finds key to produce a new cost-efficient way to fabricate inorganic-organic hybrid perovskite solar cells (PSCs) which sets a new world-record efficiency performance of 22.1 % in small cells and 19.7 percent in 1-square-centimeter cells.
Researchers from the Technical University of Madrid (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, UPM) in Spain have developed an innovative energy storage system which is able to store up to ten times more than the existing solutions using materials abundant in nature.
A Korean research team has created semi-transparent perovskite solar cells that demonstrate high-power conversion efficiency and transmit visible light while blocking infrared light, making them great candidates for solar windows.
Researchers at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Michael Graetzel and his team, found that, by briefly reducing the pressure while fabricating perovskite crystals, they were able to achieve the highest performance ever measured for larger-size perovskite solar cells, reaching over 20% efficiency and matching the performance of conventional thin-film solar cells of similar sizes. Their results are published in Science.
The promise of ‘zero-energy’ buildings – which generate as much power as they consume – has been held back by two hurdles: the cost of the thin-film solar cells (used in façades, roofs and windows), and the fact they’re made from scarce, and highly toxic, materials.
That’s about to change: a team from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Australia, led by Dr Xiaojing Hao of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics at the UNSW School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, have achieved the world’s highest efficiency rating for a full-sized thin-film solar cell using a competing thin-film technology, known as CZTS.
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) announced yerterday it has successfully developed perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells with the world’s highest power conversion efficiency of 25.5% recently.
After announcing their world record solar cell two years ago, Fraunhofer ISE now reports that they have just achieved a new highest efficiency on the module level. A mini-module comprised of four-junction solar cells reached a newly confirmed world record of 43.4 percent.
A new kind of spacecraft that sails on sunlight has just been successfully deployed above Earth. The LightSail satellite overcame last week a series of glitches to unfurl its solar sails, a propulsion system that’s entirely different to traditional rockets, thrusters or even solar panels.
The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is investing in a new solar research center in South America. The aim of the new Fraunhofer Center for Solar Energy Technologies, founded by the Fraunhofer Chile Research Foundation and located in Santiago de Chile, is to better exploit the solar energy potential in the sun-rich country, thereby reducing the dependence on fossil fuels. With particular emphasis on regional implementation, the focus shall be on the further development of solar thermal and photovoltaic technologies and applications with partners from research and industry.
Aalto University’s researchers in Finland together with Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Spain have obtained the record-breaking efficiency of 22.1% on nanostructured silicon solar cells as certified by Fraunhofer ISE CalLab.
