The Future of Solar Technology

The sun is the source of all life on Earth. In just one hour the sunlight hitting the earth’s surface provides enough energy to power the global economy for a full year (Brown, 2015). The sun will continue to burn for billions of years, making it an unquestionably reliable source for renewable energy. Modern-day photovoltaic (PV) solar cells rely on the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon where light is used to free electrons from a solid surface - usually silicon - to create electricity. PV panels are typically installed on homes and buildings, or in ground arrangements, sometimes called solar farms.

Solar cell or photovoltaic (PV) systems usually transformed energy from the sun in to electric current. It can be measured in terms of ‘‘conversion efficiency’’, the proportion of solar energy transformed to electricity. (Henderson, Conkling, & Roberts, 2007) Sunpower primarily focused on the production of solar cell. But by moving in to wafer manufacturing it soon incorporated in to manufacturing of solar power module units. In general Sunpower manufacturing process needed approximately two times as many steps as the usual solar manufacturing process need and many of these steps were distinctive to Sunpower. Sunpower has nearly 15 -20 established cell manufactures, a handful of silicon – based cell manufacturing upstarts and a number of thin film solar companies offering potentially unsettling technologies.

The greatest energy that can be produced by the sun is electricity. Photovoltaics, or solar cells, capture the sun and convert it into electricity. Solar cells were discovered by the Europeans back in the 1870’s when they used selenium to develop the telegraph. They found that when light hits selenium it would produce and electrical current. Soon enough there were many scientists and engineers working on photovoltaic systems. Silicon and Selenium proved to be the two best elements to conduct electricity when light hits them. Photovoltaic systems (PV cell) work by converting the suns light into electricity. A semi conducting material absorbs the sunlight, that energy knocks electrons loose from their atoms, this allows the electrons to flow through the material to produce electricity. The further development of solar cells can be attributed to the satellite industry. Solar cells were expensive and there was no use for them until satellites came. Because it is impractical to tether satellites it became important to develop solar energy at any cost that would power these satellites. This created a sustainable market for solar power, the first of its kind.

Abstarct- The aim of this work is a comparison of the merit and demerit of of different generation solar cells i.e. Single crystal silicon wafers (c-Si), Amorphous silicon (a-Si), Polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si), Cadmium telluride (CdTe), Copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) alloy, Nanocrystal solar cells, Photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells, Polymer solar cells, Dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC), Hybrid - inorganic crystals. Solar cells are becoming a mature technology. Solar cell provides clean energy. As it silently generates electricity and produces no air pollution or hazardous waste. Since there have been rapid advances in the efficiency and reliability of these cells, along with a

Solar industry has been paying lots of attention to coating technology in the past 10 years. Solar energy is considered the future of alternative energy sources. It has been recognized as one of the most widely used renewable sources of energy in the few recent years for its non-polluting characteristics which combats the Greenhouse effect on global climate created by the use of fossil fuels, figure 1.6. The generation of solar power is done by converting the solar energy into electricity by using either photo-voltaic (PV) solar cells (direct method) or concentrated solar power (CSP). Photoelectric effect is used by PV cells to convert solar energy into electric energy. With the rapid growth of solar energy harvesting as a clean source of power, the enhancement of solar cell efficiency grabs more attention nowadays.

Think about solar energy and the first image that springs to the mind is that of those arrays of shiny photovoltaic panels adorning the rooftops and the countryside. Indeed, photovoltaic cells still remain the most popular way of generating solar power. Solar power, for one thing, is not cheap. However, even though the initial set up costs can be quite high, the long-term financial benefits of using solar power are too strong to deny.

1954, three American researchers, Gerald Pearson, Calvin Fuller and Daryl Chapin, designed a silicon solar cell capable of a six percent energy conversion efficiency with direct sunlight

Nanosolar is a start-up company and expects to be one of the first manufacturers to produce thin-film solar panels using copper indium gallium (di)selenide (CIGS) technology. Nanosolar is focused on selling a single type of thin-film Photovoltaic (PV) module called the “Nanosolar Utility Panel”. The utility panel is 50% less energy efficient than c-Si modules, but being 90% less expensive to produce.

When it comes to most renewable energy solutions, the biggest challenge they face are the times when power is either not being generated or when power is being over generated. Solar energy is no different in this aspect. To deal with this issue, some adopters have turned to large battery installations to store the excess power for their later personal use. While this may become a viable option when battery technology improves in efficiency and the overall cost drops, the technology is just not there

Green technology is most utilized today in the quest for alternative energy. Solar energy, wind turbines, and using the oceans energy are in the lead for making a softer imprint on the planets environment and its resources. Solar panels use the heat from the sun to convert into useable electricity. That energy can either be stored in batteries or returned to the local energy provider if still connected to them. The idea of this is to utilize the local grid as a bank to receive credit for the energy you provide and pull it out when needed with little to no charge. The panels that provide this are fast becoming more cost effective, easier to handle, and readily available to the average consumer. Robbins (2009) demonstrates an example of these promising ‘thin film’ solar cells as seen in Figure 2 of this paper.

Zhou,Z.H.,Tolbert,D.B.Toso,R.Thomas,B.J.Schwartz,Y.Rubin,N.S.Knutson,D.Kilbride,B.C.Huber,A.S.Ferrreira,L.S.Devi,J.R, Challa.Solar Power EnergySLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, “New design could dramatically boost efficiency of low cost-solar panels” Science Daily, Print. July 2015. Web.  .

Near infrared (NIR) light has attracted much attention owing to its widespread applications in energy conversion, (-- removed HTML --) (-- removed HTML --) 1–3 (-- removed HTML --) (-- removed HTML --) sensing, (-- removed HTML --) (-- removed HTML --) 4 (-- removed HTML --) (-- removed HTML --) and bio-therapy. (-- removed HTML --) (-- removed HTML --) 5–7 (-- removed HTML --) (-- removed HTML --) In particular, to solve the energy problem all over the world, efficient utilization of natural energy is strongly required. Si solar cells (SCs) are the most widespread energy conversion devices used to harvest solar energy. However, Si SCs do not respond to NIR light of over 1200 nm in wavelength in the solar spectrum owing to their

As world population continues to rise and economic development drives energy consumption upward, the necessity of energy diversification will intensify. Obvious concerns for fossil fuels, such as their inherent finitude and the pollution costs, only further accentuate the need for adoption of non-fossil fuel energy sources. In the renewable energy market solar energy is an increasingly popular option. Over the past 15 years, falling prices and increasing efficiency have resulted in a 20% increase in solar energy production; furthermore, as the Sun provides enough radiant energy to Earth each day to power society for year, the potential for solar development is markedly high but requires substantial development (National Geographic 2014). Solar energy production often takes two general forms: for residential power production, the photo-voltaic cell panel (hereafter PV) is the dominant mode; for commercial production, solar energy is converted to thermal energy and harnessed via turbine. Regardless of implementation, the primary obstacles of solar energy adoption are geographic space and high costs; otherwise, solar energy is a remarkably adaptable technology that can be deployed nearly worldwide despite differences in climate (National Geographic 2014). For the purposes of this research report, the focus will revolve around PV

There are many current challenges to perovskite solar cells. One of these is their long-term stability. Typical silicon solar panels are usually guaranteed to last up to 20 years. However, perovskite solar cells only last for months. Extreme temperatures, humidity, light levels, and weather changes all cause perovskite cells to decompose. In particular, moisture is a problem as perovskite reacts to water forming hydrates; the crystal structures are altered in a way so that the perovskites cannot absorb visible light anymore, and thus, rendering them useless. There has been progress; cells had once only lasted minutes but now can last a few months, but in order to achieve this team’s goal of having

Large solar plants occupy a vast area of land and threaten wildlife because one square kilometer is needed to produce 40 megawatts of energy from solar power.4 British scientists are attempting to improve the effectiveness of photovoltaic cells by utilizing “copper indium diselenide and cadmium telluride to find an affordable and more sustainable way to make solar panels to convert light energy into electricity.”5