Solar Cells Info

Japanese electronics company Sharp is seeking tieups overseas, improved technology, and ramped-up business at home to boost its solar power business
By Kenji Hall, Asia /July 20, 2009,
(BusinessWeek’s technology correspondent in Tokyo)
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2009/gb20090720_163441.htm

In late 2007, not long after stepping in as president of Sharp, Mikio Katayama learned an important lesson about the energy industry. Katayama was meeting with diplomats in Japan and government officials overseas to discuss Sharp’s business producing photovoltaic solar panels. He had figured mounting evidence about global warming would be a wake-up call for countries to invest more in clean energy technologies. But instead, officials talked about solar energy in terms of national security. “That’s when we realized that it wasn’t just about saving the environment,” he recalled in a recent interview. (more…)

Source: ScienceDaily, July 11, 2009
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090707131901.htm
Adapted from materials provided by University of California – Los Angeles.

Though the solar industry today predominately produces solar panels made from crystalline silicon, they remain relatively expensive to make. New players in the solar industry have instead been looking at panels that can harvest energy with CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-selenide) or CIGS-related materials. CIGS panels have a high efficiency potential, may be cheaper to produce and would use less raw materials than silicon solar panels. (more…)

By R.M. Schneiderman, GreenInc -New York Times /July 20, 2009
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/for-solar-green-jobs-may-depend-on-green-automation/?hp

SolarAgence France-Presse Analysts suggest that the production of solar cells will need to become more automated if the industry is to become truly competitive.  Aside from its environmental benefits, solar energy is frequently touted for its job creation potential. But for solar manufacturers themselves, machines — not employees — may be the key to their long-term survival. (more…)

by EcoGeneration — July/August 2009
http://ecogeneration.com.au/news/australias_increasing_pv_power/001335/

Australia’s PV power market grew substantially in 2008, bringing Australia’s total installed capacity to 104.5 MW. The figures come from a key report into Australia’s photovoltaic (PV) power market – National Survey Report of PV Power Applications in Australia 2008, prepared by Dr Muriel Watt on behalf of the Australian PV Association (APVA) and published in May this year. The report found an 80 per cent increase in total megawatts (MW) of installed PV above 2007 levels, with 22.02 MW of PV installed from 1 January to 31 December last year. (more…)

Source: SteelGuru.com, 13 Jun 2009
http://steelguru.com/news/index/2009/06/13/OTgyNjU3D/
Dyesol_takes_a_step_toward_integrating_solar_cells_onto_strip_steel.html

Dyesol said that it is another step closer to the commercial production of Dye Solar Cells integrated onto strip steel in a coil coating line. The joint project between Dyesol and Corus Colors is supported by the UK’s Welsh Assembly Government. The partners are creating a pilot production line for the technology at the PV Accelerator in North Wales. (more…)

by Edward Morgan, 23 June 2009
Source: Royal Soc. of Chemistry /Chemical Technology
http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/ChemTech/Volume/2009/08/Lateral_solar_cells.asp
A new way of anchoring dyes in organic solar cells improves their performance, say an international team of scientists.

Dye-sensitised solar cells (DSCs) contain an organic dye that releases electrons when excited by sunlight. The electrons are transferred to a semiconductor to generate electricity. The dye consists of a donor unit and an acceptor unit separated by a spacer group. Most DSCs use cyanoacrylic acid coupled to the acceptor unit to anchor the dye to the semiconductor. However, this makes it difficult to modify the dye’s structure to improve the cell’s performance. (more…)

Source: Laboratory Equipment.com, June 30, 2009
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/
news-korean-breakthrough-photovoltaic-cells-063009.aspx?xmlmenuid=51

Korean researchers have recently made a breakthrough discovery in solar cell development that increases the efficiency of thin-film panchromatic solar cells and allows use of clean and reusable energy on the entire globe.  The Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) team was able to stack three different color layers on a nanogranular titanium dioxide (TiO2) film. This allows the dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) panchromatic film to absorb and convert all visible rays found in nature into power, meaning more electricity than what we would expect from conventional solar cells. (more…)

By Kim Tong-hyung, Staff Reporter, 29 June 2009
Source: KoreaTimes
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/
tech_view.asp?newsIdx=47591&categoryCode=129

A team of South Korean researchers suggested a new approach that enables dramatic improvement in the low-cost, thin-film solar cells now being developed in laboratories around the world.  The new technique could improve the power conversion rates of dye-sensitized solar cells by more than 50 percent of the current level once commercialization is made. (more…)

Cutting out the interfering clouds by rising above them
By J Mark Lytle, Tokyo /Via Nikkei, June 28, 2009
Source: TechRadar.com
http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/future-tech/
satellites-to-beam-wireless-power-from-space-611706

Solar power is an undeniably great idea, but it soon runs into trouble when clouds roll in to block the Sun’s rays. Which is why we could soon be looking at moving the panels into space way beyond the pesky old atmosphere.  The plan is already in motion in Japan, where the government is soliciting for firms to build the hardware required to get giant solar panels into orbit.

Ready by 2030
By next month, the goal is to have the necessary partners in place for the real planning to begin, with a goal of supplying solar power from space by 2030. For the scheme to work, the various parties involved will have to not just get the solar satellites into space, but also beam the power down to Earth in the form of microwaves.

Beam me down
Initial testing will focus on short-range wireless power transmission, building slowly to reach the 36,000km needed to bridge the gap between geostationary satellites and ground stations.

by Ucilia Wang,  June 25, 2009
Source: GreenTechMedia.com
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/
suntech-power-plans-to-start-u.s.-panel-production-in-early-2010/

The Chinese solar company is now choosing among four sites for its first, 100-megawatt factory to build solar panels in the United States, says an executive. Suntech Power plans to announce in a few weeks the site of its first factory in the United States, and expects to start production in the first quarter of 2010, said Roger Efird, president of North American sales for Suntech Thursday. (more…)