Big solar panel efficiency breakthrough

[Richard230]

According to a one-minute report on the local TV news a few minutes ago (which almost exceeded the talking-head's attention span and my short-term memory), a Stanford University researcher announced at an East Coast meeting today that they had found a way to triple the efficiency of normal solar panels. They say they have developed a nano-coating that can be installed over the panels to vastly increase its efficiency.

A 300% efficiency increase, by just by placing a micro-thin coating over the panels, seems almost too good to be true though. I hope it all pans out in the real world. I'll bet Stanford hopes so too. They no doubt stand to make a ton of money licensing this technology if it works as advertised.

This sort of solar energy efficiency increase could potentially go a long way toward getting homes and some businesses off the "grid" and help much of the World reduce its consumption of oil, gas and coal.

[Richard230]

Here is a little more information regarding this technology:

http://www.solarthermalmagazine.com/2010/08/03/solar-thermal-and-pv-efficiency-breakthrough-stanford-solar-energy-researchers-make-big-claims/

[EmpulseRider]

Awesome! Though Im betting that existing panels means existing panel technology... probably could'nt just slop this crap onto the panels I already have .

Either way, I hope this makes it to market soon as I will probably be upgrading my system to power a plugin Hybrid and a Brammo Empulse within a year or two.

[Kelly Olsen]

This and battery technology is really were our country should be putting our resources for scientific development as far as energy is concerned. Thanks for posting this link.

[protomech]

Here's an earlier article I read on the topic:
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/08/new-solar-cell-uses-heat-to-beat-theoretical-limits.ars

From the article you linked:

Because PETE performs best at temperatures well in excess of what a rooftop solar panel would reach, the devices will work best in solar concentrators such as parabolic dishes, which can get as hot as 800 C. Dishes are used in large solar farms similar to those proposed for the Mojave Desert in Southern California and usually include a thermal conversion mechanism as part of their design, which offers another opportunity for PETE to help generate electricity as well as minimize costs by meshing with existing technology.

So not something you can simply spray onto an existing installation, sadly.

55% or 60% efficiency is quite good. The absolute best conventional solar cells are 40% (space/military and solar race type applications); reasonably affordable cells can be up to 30%, and usually the best kw/$ cells are around 20%. So perhaps a sun-aligned collector using this can be designed that competes with kw/$ cells? That'd be pretty awesome.