Solar energy breakthrough could reduce need for solar farms

[Judi Lynn]

Oxford scientists make new solar cell technology discovery which you could soon wear, stick on your mobile or coat your car with

PUBLISHED
9 AUG 2024


Scientists at Oxford University Physics Department have developed a revolutionary approach which could generate increasing amounts of solar electricity without the need for silicon-based solar panels. Instead, their innovation works by coating a new power-generating material onto the surfaces of everyday objects such as rucksacks, cars, and mobile phones.


Their new light-absorbing material is, for the first time, thin and flexible enough to apply to the surface of almost any building or common object. Using a pioneering technique developed in Oxford, which stacks multiple light-absorbing layers into one solar cell, they have harnessed a wider range of the light spectrum, allowing more power to be generated from the same amount of sunlight.

This ultra-thin material, using this so-called multi-junction approach, has now been independently certified to deliver over 27% energy efficiency, for the first time matching the performance of traditional, single-layer, energy-generating materials known as silicon photovoltaics. Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), gave its certification prior to publication of the researchers’ scientific study later this year.

‘During just five years experimenting with our stacking or multi-junction approach we have raised power conversion efficiency from around 6% to over 27%, close to the limits of what single-layer photovoltaics can achieve today,’ said Dr Shuaifeng Hu, Post Doctoral Fellow at Oxford University Physics. ‘We believe that, over time, this approach could enable the photovoltaic devices to achieve far greater efficiencies, exceeding 45%.’

More:
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-08-09-solar-energy-breakthrough-could-reduce-need-solar-farms

[Think. Again.]

1. K&R

[quakerboy]

2. solar farms seem wasteful

At least until such time as we cover rooftops and parkinglots. That should be a priority

[JT45242]

4. A lot of malls going with panels as roof for parking

Reduces the need for snow removal and produces electricity.

Was on a board looking at making a nonprofit more green and we looked into this. Startup costs were prohibitive because no tax breaks for a non profit which is how we currently push solar energy.

But think of a food bank/pantry that could generate enough electricity thru solar panels over the parking lot to not have to pay for refrigeration of the food or climate control for the building. It would put more money into buying food in bulk and could help more people.

[Woodwizard]

11. Right

I got solar on my shop roof in 2014 it has supplied the shop and house we have a partial electric bill in the Dec to Feb months. The space was doing nothing besides being a roof before.

[Botany]

3. Thanx for posting

The sunlight should …. If possible…. be used directly at the building or car or equipment it
goes to.

[FailureToCommunicate]

6. No, silly, the power has to go to a big (oil) central power company first, and THEN out

to you the consumer. Can't cut out the (greedy) middlemen!

[JT45242]

5. It could charge electric cars as you drove...

Big limit currently is range and charge time.

Our son just graduated college and is 7-8 hour drive away.

We went traditional hybrid to be more green but not have to stop for long charging time.

Not sure if it would generate fast enough, but if you started full charge and would generate enough electricity solar to keep it running for 400-500 miles with our stopping for full charge would be a game changer for EV and reducing greenhouse gases from cars.

[3Hotdogs]

12. My '21 Sonata had a solar collector where a sun roof would have been.

Specs were, that it added 1 mile per gallon. It wasn't parked in a garage.

Who knows if it paid for itself?

[et tu]

7. earth needs all the innovations

it can get to help change climate change. forward!

[2naSalit]

8. Point - Source power generation...

Is the way to go and this will move us closer to that option.

[SunSeeker]

9. We should be making these sort of breakthroughs in the US. Glad UK is. nt

[70sEraVet]

10. For those of us who have vintage homes and want to preserve ....

their historic appearance, the option to simply have the metal roof painted with such a material would be a game-changer!

[hunter]

13. Slopping a short-lived coating of heavy metals onto everything doesn't seem like a good idea.

This would be a tremendous waste of materials like copper, materials that take require a lot of energy to refine and recycle, causing a lot of pollution in the process.

Markets are already flooded with cheap solar crap that ends up as electronic waste mostly dumped in landfills within a decade or less.

In places like California solar has already reached the point of diminishing returns, where additional solar capacity is only increasing the cost of electricity for everyone.

The problems with solar electricity are the same at any scale, from a small solar "tiny home" to an entire regional electric grid. And no, the answer is not "batteries." Batteries are not magic.

Any handy person with a thousand dollars in their pocket (or good scrounging skills) can investigate the realities of solar power for themselves. Even if solar panels could be made for free they could not displace fossil fuels because of their dismal capacity factors. Backup power is a dirty business.

An average home solar system in California has an annual capacity factor of 16% (more in the summer, less in the winter)

Large desert solar "farms" get about 25%, the best claiming something like 28%, numbers which are often inflated by marketing hype. That's not good enough to "save the world," it's not enough to displace fossil fuels to any significant extent. None of it is economically viable without large fossil fuel inputs.

If we truly want to quit fossil fuels we'll simply have to ban them. Otherwise all these "renewable" energy "breakthroughs" are little more than a distraction, mere fiddling while the world burns.