Solar Energy  

With our continued collective destruction of the planet's natural resources, rampant consumption, and devastating amounts of carbon dioxide being emitted, technological progress in solar energy is a necessary step in the right direction for our future.

One of the most important technologies humanity possesses today is solar energy. As people continue to cause destruction from the unearthing and exploitation of natural resources, rampant consumption and inefficient distribution of limited goods and services, and devastating amounts of carbon dioxide being emitted, the progress achieved in the solar energy space is a much needed step in the right direction for humanity's future. Here is a summary of what this type of power source does for all of us.

Cost Savings

Monetary benefits come secondary when contrasted with the planetary benefits that solar energy provides, such as environmental preservation. However, being able to save money is a benefit that stimulates interest from the public. Switching to solar panels for your home can rake in monthly savings of up to $100 in many parts of the US. Over a 20-year time frame, this can translate into more than $30,000, according to One Block Off the Grid.

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Streamlined Agriculture

Solar energy can be integrated into water pumps, storage systems, electric barriers, heating and cooling lines, and other agricultural products. In fact, an increasing number of farmers worldwide are making the switch to solar energy in an effort to move to a more sustainable future. An example of solar in the agricultural department is a conduction dryer designed by students in India. The tool dries out crops so that farmers can sell food at a much better price and, subsequently, minimize food wastage.

More Energy-Efficient Cities

Major cities around the world are the largest consumers of energy, from the vast fleets of public and private transportation being driven on the ground, air, and water to the electricity being used to power televisions, ovens, and washers. Solar power outlets, clothing, backpacks, and even the possibility of a solar road in the future are all important tools that will help keep energy supply and demand in the future at bay.

Key Power Source of the Future

Solar energy has the characteristics of being both sustainable and renewable. As long as the giant ball of fire in our skies continue to rise, solar energy is viable. Creation and conversion of solar energy also requires minimal maintenance once it has been installed and working at optimal efficiency by a solar energy provider like Renewable Solar Resources.

So, what's the future of solar energy? This depends on future government policies that will be implemented concerning it. If governments around the world continue to improve the tax benefits of switching to solar energy and private companies continue to lower the price point for getting panels installed in residential and commercial properties, the future of solar and of humanity looks bright.

All in all, solar energy is here to stay. Not only that, but it is spreading throughout the world—impacting communities where electricity hasn’t always been available. Imagine living in a world where everyone has the luxury of power that makes life so much simpler. That, my friends, is the true future of this technology.

By  Hannah Whittenly

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Solar  

At a time when choosing to go solar is becoming increasingly popular, you may be asking yourself why so many people are choosing to install solar panels on their homes. Solar energy is good for both the environment and your pocketbook.

We have compiled a list of seven reasons homeowners are choosing to go solar and why now is the the best time to install panels on your home.

Save Money on Energy Bills

It’s likely that, more often than not, you dread seeing the amount due on your monthly energy bill. Energy prices seem to be on the rise constantly in recent years, making it nearly impossible to cut down on your utility bills. With the installation of solar panels, you will see an immediate decrease in energy costs.

Solar Panels Can Help Protect Your Roof

While you may be concerned that the installation of solar panels will leave holes in your roof that will ultimately weaken it and lead to leaking, in reality, solar panels add an extra layer of protection for your roof. Not to mention, they lend a sleek look to your home.

Increase Home Value

As with all energy efficient upgrades, solar panels add value to your home and help to make it more marketable by offering an excellent selling feature that will no doubt set your home apart from others on the market.

Become More Self-Sufficient

Self-sufficiency is becoming more popular and more necessary as the cost of living is increasing in most American cities. Installing solar panels on your home ensures you will no longer be at the mercy of your local energy company.

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The Solar Investment Tax Credit

With the extension of the Solar Investment Tax Credit, you are able to benefit from a 30% tax break through the end of 2019. This percentage drops to 26% from 2020 through 2021, then 22% from 2022 through 2023, at which time it will no longer be available. Going solar now allows you to reap the full benefits of this credit.

Help Preserve Environmental Resources

Choosing to go solar is an excellent way to decrease your carbon footprint and do something good for the environment. Unlike traditional energy that sends harmful byproducts into the ozone during production, solar energy is made from a clean and renewable resource. Going solar is important and necessary to help preserve the environment for future generations.

Have Peace of Mind Knowing You’re Doing Your Part

In a world where ice caps are melting, animals are going extinct, and the ozone is rapidly depleting, we all need to do our part to protect the world around us. When you go solar now, you can have peace of mind knowing you are doing everything you can to protect the environment and preserve our natural resources.

Take Advantage of Solar Today

With all of the benefits going solar can offer your household, what are you waiting for?

By  Rachelle Wilber

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 Solar Energy  

Researchers have obtained the record-breaking efficiency of 22.1 percent efficiency on nanostructured silicon solar cells. The achievement is almost a four percent absolute increase to their previous record.

Researchers have obtained a record-breaking efficiency of 22.1% on nanostructured silicon solar cells. The achievement is almost a four percent absolute increase to their previous record.

The feat was accomplished by applying a thin passivating film on the nanostructures by Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), and by integrating all metal contacts on the back side of the cell.

The results were published in Nature Nanotechnology.

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Surface recombination fabrication techniques has long been the bottleneck of black silicon solar cells and has so far limited the cell efficiency to only moderate values. The new record cells consists of a thick back-contacted structure that is known to be highly sensitive to the front surface recombination.

The certified external quantum efficiency of 96% at 300nm wavelength demonstrates that the increased surface recombination problem no longer exists and for the first time the black silicon is not limiting the final energy conversion efficiency.

"The energy conversion efficiency is not the only parameter that we should look at," explains Professor Hele Savin from Aalto University, who coordinated the study. "Due to the ability of black cells to capture solar radiation from low angles, they generate more electricity already over the duration of one day as compared to the traditional cells."

"This is an advantage particularly in the north, where the sun shines from a low angle for a large part of the year. We have demonstrated that in winter Helsinki, black cells generate considerably more electricity than traditional cells even though both cells have identical efficiency values," she adds.

"We have demonstrated that in winter Helsinki, black cells generate considerably more electricity than traditional cells."

In the near future, the goal of the researchers is to apply the technology to other cell structures – in particular, thin and multi-crystalline cells.

"Our record cells were fabricated using p-type silicon, which is known to suffer from impurity-related degradation. There is no reason why even higher efficiencies could not be reached using n-type silicon or more advanced cell structures," Savin predicts.

The development of the cells fabricated last year will continue in the upcoming “BLACK” project, supported by the European Union, in which Professor Savin together with her team will develop the technology further in cooperation with industry.

The surface area of the best cells in the study was already nine square centimeters (3 1/2"). This represents results that can be scaled to full wafers and all the way to the industrial scale, claim the researchers.


SOURCE  Aalto University

By 33rd Square

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 Solar Energy  

The viability of solar energy is a big question for the near future.  With prices dropping, and the technology improving, how close are we to solar becoming competitive with fossil fuels?

The sun is a free, renewable energy source just waiting to be harvested. Many individuals have installed private solar power panels on their houses to supplement the power supply. The real question is whether solar power can be gathered and used commercially as a viable replacement for fossil fuel.

Availability

One problem with solar power is that it is not always available. It is not available at night, and clouds frequently block the sun during the day. The obvious solution is to try to store solar energy in some way for use when the sun isn't shining, but no one has come up with a truly economical way to store solar energy generated by photovoltaic panels.

According to an environmentalist who holds an online Electrical Engineering Master's degree, if a public utility decided to use solar power they would have to have a fossil fuel plant available as backup. They would have to switch back and forth between solar power and conventional power as the available sunlight shifted. This kind of switching is very inefficient. Starting and stopping a clean natural gas power plant uses up more energy than would be supplied by the solar panels, so a dirty coal power plant would have to be used instead.

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Due to its governmental policies, Germany is currently the top solar-energy producing nation the world. It also has extremely expensive energy, with the retail rate at 34 cents per kilowatt-hour; U.S. retail energy is 12 cents per kilowatt-hour. And Germany is producing large amounts of pollution because the areas served by solar energy during the day turn to coal-powered plants to provide energy the rest of the time.

Resource Issues

Unlike wind turbine power plants that can easily share space with agriculture, solar panelscannot share the land with any other user, including wildlife and plants. A concentrating thermal solar power plant needs 4 to 16 acres per megawatt generated. These plants also consume significant amounts of water, around 600 gallons per megawatt generated. The sunny deserts that are considered the best sites for large-scale solar plants have limited water supplies.

Image Source - U.S. Department of Energy

Prices Falling

On the other hand, the price of utility-scale solar energy had dropped to 11 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2013. Utility-scale energy is generated by small plants and sold to wholesale utility buyers, not directly to consumers. Utility-scale natural gas energy is being sold for around 6 cents per kilowatt-hour, so solar energy technology has to advance a bit further in efficiency before becoming a truly viable commercial energy source.

By Emma Sturgis

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 Solar Power  

Solar energy scientists have converted over 40 percent of the sunlight hitting a solar system into electricity, the highest efficiency ever reported.

Solar energy researchers have converted over 40% of the sunlight hitting a solar system into electricity, the highest efficiency ever reported.

"We used commercial solar cells, but in a new way, so these efficiency improvements are readily accessible to the solar industry."

The world-beating efficiency was achieved in outdoor tests in Sydney, before being independently confirmed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at their outdoor test facility in the United States.

The work was funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and supported by the Australia–US Institute for Advanced Photovoltaics (AUSIAPV)

“This is the highest efficiency ever reported for sunlight conversion into electricity,” University of New South Wales (UNSW) Scientia Professor and Director of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP) Professor Martin Green said.

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“We used commercial solar cells, but in a new way, so these efficiency improvements are readily accessible to the solar industry,” added Dr Mark Keevers, the UNSW solar scientist who managed the project.

The 40% efficiency milestone is the latest in a long line of achievements by UNSW solar researchers spanning four decades. These include the first photovoltaic system to convert sunlight to electricity with over 20% efficiency in 1989, with the new result doubling this performance.

“The new results are based on the use of focused sunlight, and are particularly relevant to photovoltaic power towers being developed in Australia,” Professor Green said.

Power towers are being developed by Australian company, RayGen Resources, which provided design and technical support for the high efficiency prototype. Another partner in the research was Spectrolab, a US–based company that provided some of the cells used in the project.

A key part of the prototype’s design is the use of a custom optical bandpass filter to capture sunlight that is normally wasted by commercial solar cells on towers and convert it to electricity at a higher efficiency than the solar cells themselves ever could.

Such filters reflect particular wavelengths of light while transmitting others.

ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said the achievement is another world first for Australian research and development and further demonstrates the value of investing in Australia’s renewable energy ingenuity.

“We hope to see this home grown innovation take the next steps from prototyping to pilot scale demonstrations. Ultimately, more efficient commercial solar plants will make renewable energy cheaper, increasing its competitiveness.”


SOURCE  University of New South Wales

By 33rd Square

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 Solar Power  

An Israeli company, Brenmiller Energy has devised a new energy storage system that it says is an alternative to other solar technologies and will help provide clean electricity at a competitive price.

Israeli firm, Brenmiller Energy claims that it has overcome one of the biggest obstacles to widespread adoption of solar power systems—that of storage.

The company was founded in 2012, by Avi Brenmiller, former CEO of Siemens CSP and Solel. The company is focused on developing groundbreaking solar technologies and has over 100 people working for it in research and development.

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Brenmiller Energy has developed the bCell™ System – a modular solar steam generation product that is a new concept providing real dispatchable energy.

The system enables the production of stable and continuous steam, regardless of the sunlight available, and even works at night. The steam is then used to power a steam turbine, which transforms the energy into usable electricity.

Unlike other solar cell technology, Brenmiller's system introduces the step of capturing and storing heat produced superheating their proprietary material with the sun.

"Storage is the name of the game. We will have this technology at conventional fuel's numbers, with the same availability around the clock."

"Storage is the name of the game," says Brenmiller. "We will have this technology at conventional fuel's numbers, with the same availability around the clock."

The company claims their system operates at grid parity.

According to the company, the bCell™ System is designed for high availability, rapid deployment and easy maintenance. It is scalable and can provide customized solutions to various energy demands.

SOURCE  Business Insider

By 33rd Square

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 Solar Energy  

Solar power has been doubling every two years for the past 30 years and the price has been falling dramatically. The technology is now set to dramatically change the world.

Some experts say today that solar power does not present any realistic chance of becoming a major source of energy for the world.  As Vivek Wadhwa points out in a piece for the Washington Post, this 'expert analysis' is similar to what some analysts were saying about cellular phones in the 1980's - in that case the report from McKinsey & Company was dead wrong.

After decades of development, solar power presently barely supplies one percent of the world’s energy needs.  Critics claim that solar is inefficient, too expensive to install, and unreliable, and will fail without government subsidies.

As anyone familiar with exponential growth is aware, one percent means halfway to 100 percent. Solar power has been doubling every two years for the past 30 years and the price has been falling dramatically.

New advances using graphene and other nanotechnology methods hold the promise for even more extreme gains in solar collection and power storage.

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According to Ray Kurzweil, solar energy is less than 14 years away from meeting 100 percent of today’s energy needs. Even then, we will be using only one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the Earth.

In places such as Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia, and the Southwest United States, residential-scale solar production has already reached “grid parity” with average residential electricity prices.  In those areas it costs no more in the long term to install solar panels than to buy electricity from utility companies.

The prices of solar panels have fallen 75 percent in the past five years alone and will fall much further as the technologies to create them improve and scale of production increases.  By 2020, solar energy will be price-competitive with energy generated from fossil fuels on an unsubsidized basis in most parts of the world.  Within the next decade, it will cost a fraction of what fossil fuel-based alternatives do.

The average cost of solar panels has gone from $76.67/watt in 1977 to just $0.613/watt today according to PVinsights.

As Wadhwa explains, there is little doubt that we are heading into an era of unlimited and almost free clean energy.  This has profound implications.

The disruption will affect of the entire fossil-fuel industry, starting with utility companies. Countries such as Germany, China, and Japan are leading the charge in the adoption of clean energies.  Solar installations still depend on other power sources to supply energy when the sun isn’t shining, but battery-storage technologies will improve so much over the next two decades that homes won’t be dependent on the utility companies.

Today, the batteries needed to store a sufficient amount of solar energy are far too large for mass adoption by residential home users. However, Solar City and Tesla are now rumored to be working together to dramatically scale down the size of batteries.

Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind both companies, recently said Tesla is using SolarCity’s customers as a base to discover how to make battery packs that are small enough, light enough and powerful enough that they might one day sit comfortably in your garage, a mere four inches from the wall.

"The 'we have done it like this for a century' value chain in developed electricity markets will be turned upside down within the next 10-20 years, driven by solar and batteries."

Major companies like Walmart, IKEA, Google, Apple, Facebook, Costco, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Staples, and many others are starting to go solar in a big way.

A UBS study said it well: "Our view is that the 'we have done it like this for a century' value chain in developed electricity markets will be turned upside down within the next 10-20 years, driven by solar and batteries." The report also states that:

By 2025, everybody will be able to produce and store power. And it will be green and cost competitive, i.e., not more expensive or even cheaper than buying power from utilities. It is also the most efficient way to produce power where it is consumed, because transmission losses will be minimized. Power will no longer be something that is consumed in a 'dumb' way. Homes and grids will be smart, aligning the demand profile with supply from (volatile) renewables."

The environment will also benefit from the vast reduction of fossil fuels, which will also boost most sectors of the economy.  Electric cars will become cheaper to operate than fossil-fuel-burning ones, projects Wadhwa:

We will be able to create unlimited clean water — by boiling ocean water and condensing it.  With inexpensive energy, our farmers can also grow hydroponic fruits and vegetables in vertical farms located near consumers.  Imagine skyscrapers located in cities that grow food in glass buildings without the need for pesticides, and that recycle nutrients and materials to ensure there is no ecological impact.  We will have the energy needed to 3D-print our everyday goods and to heat our homes.

Solar energy has the potential to be a central driving factor in creating a world of Abundance, written about by Peter Diamandis.  Perhaps more importantly, as Diamandis points out in the video below, solar has the promise to be a great force for global democratization, because the countries that presently have the least economic power, have the most sunshine.

By 33rd Square

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 Solar Energy  

Scientists from Stanford and Illinois have created a heat-resistant thermal emitter that could significantly improve solar cell efficiency. The novel component is designed to convert heat from the sun into infrared light that can be absorbed by solar cells to make electricity -- a technology known as thermophotovoltaics.

Scientists have created a heat-resistant thermal emitter that could significantly improve the efficiency of solar cells. The novel component is designed to convert heat from the sun into infrared light, which can than be absorbed by solar cells to make electricity – a technology known as thermophotovoltaics. Unlike earlier prototypes that fell apart at temperatures below 2200 degrees Fahrenheit (1200 degrees Celsius), the new thermal emitter remains stable at temperatures as high as 2500 F (1400 C).

"This is a record performance in terms of thermal stability and a major advance for the field of thermophotovoltaics," said Shanhui Fan, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University. Fan and his colleagues at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (Illinois) and North Carolina State University collaborated on the project.

The researchers' results are published in the journal Nature Communications.

A typical solar cell has a silicon semiconductor that absorbs sunlight directly and converts it into electrical energy. But silicon semiconductors only respond to infrared light. Higher-energy light waves, including most of the visible light spectrum, are wasted as heat, while lower-energy waves simply pass through the solar panel.

"In theory, conventional single-junction solar cells can only achieve an efficiency level of about 34 percent, but in practice they don't achieve that," said study co-author Paul Braun, a professor of materials science at Illinois. "That's because they throw away the majority of the sun's energy."

Thermophotovoltaic devices are designed to overcome that limitation. Instead of sending sunlight directly to the solar cell, thermophotovoltaic systems have an intermediate component that consists of two parts: an absorber that heats up when exposed to sunlight, and an emitter that converts the heat to infrared light, which is then beamed to the solar cell.

"Essentially, we tailor the light to shorter wavelengths that are ideal for driving a solar cell," Fan said. "That raises the theoretical efficiency of the cell to 80 percent, which is quite remarkable."

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So far, thermophotovoltaic systems have only achieved an efficiency level of about 8 percent, Braun noted. The poor performance is largely due to problems with the intermediate component, which is typically made of tungsten – an abundant material also used in conventional light bulbs.

"Our thermal emitters have a complex, three-dimensional nanostructure that has to withstand temperatures above 1800 F (1000 C) to be practical," Braun explained. "In fact, the hotter the better."

In previous experiments, however, the 3D structure of the emitter was destroyed at temperatures of around 1800 F (1000 C). To address the problem, Braun and his Illinois colleagues coated tungsten emitters in a nanolayer of a ceramic material called hafnium dioxide.

The results were dramatic. When subjected to temperatures of 1800 F (1000 C), the ceramic-coated emitters retained their structural integrity for more than 12 hours. When heated to 2500 F (1400 C), the samples remained thermally stable for at least an hour.

The ceramic-coated emitters were sent to Fan and his colleagues at Stanford, who confirmed that devices were still capable of producing infrared light waves that are ideal for running solar cells.

"These results are unprecedented," said former Illinois graduate student Kevin Arpin, lead author of the study. "We demonstrated for the first time that ceramics could help advance thermophotovoltaics as well other areas of research, including energy harvesting from waste heat, high-temperature catalysis and electrochemical energy storage."

Braun and Fan plan to test other ceramic-type materials and determine if the experimental thermal emitters can deliver infrared light to a working solar cell.

"We've demonstrated that the tailoring of optical properties at high temperatures is possible," Braun said. "Hafnium and tungsten are abundant, low-cost materials, and the process used to make these heat-resistant emitters is well established. Hopefully these results will motivate the thermophotovoltaics community to take another look at ceramics and other classes of materials that haven't been considered."



SOURCE  Stanford University

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 Solar Energy  

Researchers at Boston College report that modifying the surface of hematite with a nickel iron oxide coating produces an increase in cathode photovoltage of nearly four-tenths of a volt. That's nearly enough energy to put an economical method of artificial photosynthesis within reach.

Chemists at Boston College have achieved a series of breakthroughs in their efforts to develop an economical means of harnessing artificial photosynthesis by narrowing the voltage gap between the two crucial processes of oxidation and reduction, according to their latest research, published this week in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

The team reports it has come within two-tenths of the photovoltage required to mimic oxidation and reduction respectively using unique photoanodes and photocathodes the team developed using novel nanowire components and coatings. Narrowing the gap using economical chemical components, the group moves researchers closer to using the man-made reaction for unique applications such as solar energy harvesting and storage.

"Many researchers have been trying to harvest solar energy and directly store it in chemical bonds," said lead author Dunwei Wang, an associate professor of chemistry at Boston College. "Solar panels can harvest energy, but economical storage has remained elusive. We are trying to borrow a page from Mother Nature whereby photosynthesis produces energy from the sun and stores it."

But copying Mother Nature is a tall order and this particular quest "requires materials that can absorb sunlight broadly, transfer the energy to excited charges at high efficiencies and catalyze specific reduction and oxidation reactions," the team writes in the article "Hematite-Based Water Splitting with Low Turn-on Voltage."

Natural photosynthesis consists of two important processes. Oxidation produces oxygen gas. Reduction produces organic molecules. Wang said artificial photosynthesis, also known as water splitting, tries to copy these two reactions using a photoanode to oxidize water and a photocathode to either reduce water for hydrogen production or to reduce carbon dioxide for organic molecules.

But in an artificial environment, a gap has persisted in the voltage required on either side of the reaction in order achieve these results, Wang said. In essence, oxidation and reduction require 1.2 to 1.3 volts combined to achieve the charge required to power artificial photosynthesis.

Previously, only rare materials allowed researchers bridge the gap, but those efforts are prohibitively expensive for widespread application. Wang and his lab have spent the past two years searching for inexpensive alternatives to bridge the voltage gap.

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The team's latest research produced advances in photoanode development, where their engineered nanowire structures enabled the team to achieve a photovoltage of .6 volts using an iron oxide material. The voltage represents a 50 percent increase above the best prior results, which were reported last year. The results put Wang and his team within two-tenths of a volt of the necessary photovoltage.

The team achieved the gains by coating hematite, an iron oxide similar to rust, with nickel iron oxide.

Already, the team has yielded more than 1 volt of power when combined with the photocathode they developed earlier this year, said Wang.

"Our system, made of oxygen, silicon and iron – three of the four most abundant elements on earth – can now provide more than 1 volt of power together," said Wang. "Now we are just two-tenths of a volt short on the photoanode. That's a significant narrowing of the gap."

He says closing the gap completely is entirely within reach, particularly since other researchers have used different systems to do so. He said his lab might partner with other researchers in an effort to close the gap.

"With our innovations on the photocathode alone, this two-tenths of a volt is within reach," said Wang. "The real exciting part is that we were able to achieve six tenths of a volt using rust. That has never been done before."

SOURCE  EurekAlert

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 Energy  

The Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, is developing a method of harvesting solar energy from geostationary satellites sitting 36,000 km above the Earth, and transmitting it down to the planet's surface in the form of either laser beams or microwaves.

Harvesting solar energy is limited to daylight hours, and is affected by weather conditions and the seasons of the year—when you do it from the ground. In space however, the limitations don't exist. For this reason, space-based solar power could provide a continuous supply of clean, renewable energy, regardless of the time of year or any inclement weather on Earth.

In an effort to increase the options for supplying their country with energy, the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, is developing a method of harvesting solar energy from geostationary satellites sitting 36,000 km above the Earth, and transmitting it down to the planet's surface in the form of either laser beams or microwaves.

The Space Solar Power Systems project is a space-based solar power plant that generates energy by collecting sunlight in geostationary orbit. The energy is then transmitted to the ground, and converted into electricity and hydrogen for practical use. SSPS consists of a space-based power generation/transmission facility that gathers sunlight, converts it into microwaves or laser beams, and transmits those to the ground; and a power receiving facility on the ground.

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The agency aims to launch a successful space-based solar power system by 2030, and is currently conducting ground-based experiments to determine the most effective way to transmit the energy across large distances.

"There are many technological challenges to solve before SSPS can be implemented. However, in principle, we are getting close to the stage where it is feasible, and we have just moved from the study phase to the technology demonstration phase. Researchers have started preparation for the world's first demonstration of 1kW-class wireless power transmission technology, and are aiming for practical use in the 2030s," said Yasuyuki Fukumuro of JAXA.

Sending energy across tens of thousands of miles without huge losses and without endangering any life on Earth does present significant challenges that would need to be overcome in order to implement a space-based power system. The energy beam would need to travel 36,000 km and hit a receiving stations just 3 km in diameter on the surface of the planet, but Fukumuro, who is in charge of research planning for the Space Solar Power Systems project, believes "Japan currently has the most advanced technology to do this."



Japanese version:


SOURCE  Treehugger

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 Solar Power  

A discovery by researchers at the University of Alberta could make solar power cheaper, more accessible by using nanoparticle-based 'ink' to make printable or spray-on solar cells.

University of Alberta researchers have found that abundant materials in the Earth’s crust can be used to make inexpensive and easily manufactured nanoparticle-based solar cells.

The research, which was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, is published in the latest issue of ACS Nano.

The discovery, several years in the making, is an important step forward in making solar power more accessible to parts of the world that are off the traditional electricity grid or face high power costs, such as the Canadian North, said researcher Jillian Buriak, a chemistry professor and senior research officer of the National Institute for Nanotechnology based on the U of A campus.

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Buriak and her team have designed nanoparticles that absorb light and conduct electricity from two very common elements: phosphorus and zinc. Both materials are more plentiful than scarce materials such as cadmium and are free from manufacturing restrictions imposed on lead-based nanoparticles.

“Half the world already lives off the grid, and with demand for electrical power expected to double by the year 2050, it is important that renewable energy sources like solar power are made more affordable by lowering the costs of manufacturing,” Buriak said.

“My goal is that a store like Ikea could sell rolls of these things with simple instructions and baggies of screws and do-dads and you could install them yourself,” said Buriak
Her team’s research supports a promising approach of making solar cells cheaply using mass manufacturing methods like roll-to-roll printing (as with newspaper presses) or spray-coating (similar to automotive painting). “Nanoparticle-based ‘inks’ could be used to literally paint or print solar cells or precise compositions,” Buriak said.

Buriak collaborated with U of A post-doctoral fellows Erik Luber of the U of A Faculty of Engineering and Hosnay Mobarok of the Faculty of Science to create the nanoparticles. The team was able to develop a synthetic method to make zinc phosphide nanoparticles, and demonstrated that the particles can be dissolved to form an ink and processed to make thin films that are responsive to light.

Buriak and her team are now experimenting with the nanoparticles, spray-coating them onto large solar cells to test their efficiency. The team has applied for a provisional patent and has secured funding to enable the next step to scale up for manufacturing.



SOURCE  University of Alberta, Top Image: Ed Kaiser, Edmonton Journal

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 Solar Panels  

Researchers at Australia's CSIRO institution have developed a new method for printing solar panels. devices could soon be coated onto buildings, into windows and on roofs to provide power in a range of different locations and circumstances.

Australian scientists have found a way to print large but extremely lightweight and flexible solar panels. The ability to print solar panels is not new in itself - but what is new is the ability to make them as large and powerful as the Australian version.

Researchers at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation(CSIRO) said the A3-sized panels, which are created by laying a liquid photovoltaic ink onto thin, flexible plastic could soon mean everyone has the ability to print their own solar panels at home.

"It would definitely be feasible to do that," said CSIRO materials scientist Dr Scott Watkins.  "The general concept of being able to manufacture on demand, in a house or in a workplace, is really a key feature of what we're doing."

Near-term uses include putting the panels, similar in feel to a glossy magazine page, onto laptops or mobile phones - offering an extra hour of power once the inbuilt battery dies.  They could also be printed onto windows or roof structures.

"We're actively talking to a Victorian company at the moment about incorporating them into windows," Dr Watkins added.

At the moment, the 30 centimetre-wide panels generate between 10 to 50 watts of power per square metre and have been proven to last at least six months.

But that lifetime and wattage will be boosted in the future and the printers needed to make the panels far smaller, Dr Watkins said.

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SOURCE  Sydney Morning Herald

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