Solar Cells Info

Tim Colebatch, April 30, 2007
Source: theage.com.au
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/solar-cells-wait-for-their-day-in-the-sun/2007/04/29/1177787972754.html

AS A solution to global warming, solar energy has everything going for it — except cost. But a new government move and little slivers of silicon invented in Australia might soon change that.  Prime Minister John Howard hinted on Friday that next week’s budget could lift the rebate for Australians to install solar panels for generating electricity — seizing the initiative after Labor’s Kevin Rudd pledged only to keep the rebate at its current level.

And if so, Origin Energy is ready to go. A decade ago it took a punt on the Australian National University’s team of solar energy researchers, and was richly rewarded when they invented sliver cells — a technology that promises to cut the cost of solar panels in half.  ANU researchers Andrew Blakers and Klaus Weber have given cutting-edge technology a literal meaning, with a breakthrough they thought up on a train to Edinburgh in 2000. The biggest cost in solar cells is the silicon wafer. But slice the wafer into 10-centimetre slivers of silicon, array them in a panel, and you could increase the solar energy conversion tenfold.
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Mike Blanchfield, The Ottawa Citizen /April 30, 2007
Source: Canada.com
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=9bf3ac4c-2652-45e4-82b1-e64767f1f01f

Cheap, energy-efficient lightbulbs are brightening the lives of 100,000 rural poor in India in a United Nations project touted as an affordable energy solution for the under-developed world.  In a report released yesterday, the UN Energy Program (UNEP) outlined the four-year, $1.5-million Cdn project in which small solar panels were made available to villagers in some of the poorest parts of India, weaning people off their dependency on potentially dangerous, inefficient and environmentally unfriendly kerosene lamps.
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25 April 2007
Source: Carbonfree UK
http://www.carbonfree.co.uk/cf/news/wk17-07-0005.htm

Photovoltaic electricity is able to provide by 2020 power supply for over 26 Million households in the Mediterranean, with simultaneous creation of hundreds thousands of new jobs. This was announced by the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA), at the 2nd Photovoltaic Mediterranean Conference, that took place in Athens on 19 and 20 April.
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By: Marketwire .
MENLO PARK, CA /Apr. 23, 2007
Source: Solar EnerTech Corp. press release
http://www.sys-con.com/read/365252.htm

Solar EnerTech Corp. (OTCBB: SOEN) (the “Company”) is pleased to announce the recent visit by an official 11-member governmental trade delegation from The Republic of Congo at the Company’s solar cell plant in Shanghai with the stated intent as a purchasing mission.

The visit comes as a result of the Sino-Africa Economic Cooperation Summit held last November in Beijing, which was attended by 54 leaders from a number of African nations. Following the summit the Chinese government announced a renewable-energy aide program aimed at launching solar energy initiatives within Africa. Mme Jeanne Dambendzet, a senior Minister of the Congolese government and a proponent of alternative energy solutions for her country, led the delegation for a pre-purchase manufacturing inspection. The solar projects enjoy financial support by both the Congolese and Chinese governments with China Industrial and Agricultural Machinery Import and Export Company, a Chinese state-owned entity, acting as intermediary agent to manage the export of completed solar modules and integrated systems to the project locations in Congo.
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By Joe McDonald, The Associated Press /April 23, 2007
source:
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070423/BUSINESS01/704230329/1066/BUSINESS01

SHANGHAI, China – Physicist Shi Zhengrong spent the 1990s in an Australian lab studying solar power, a field he picked by chance. He expected to devote his life to science. Still, Shi saw signs of a blossoming industry as Germany, Japan and other countries invested in cleaner power. Excited by a trip home that showed him China’s rapid development, he startled friends by abruptly moving his wife and two Australian-born sons to his homeland in 2001 to launch a solar equipment company.
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26 April 2007
source: Compoundsemiconductor.net
http://compoundsemiconductor.net/articles/news/11/4/24/1

University researchers in San Diego demonstrate an environmentalist’s dream – a solar-powered device that could turn carbon dioxide into fuel.  A research group at the University of California, San Diego, has shown how compound semiconductor solar cells can convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide – a useful gas for industrial chemists and, potentially, a fuel.  Cliff Kubiak and graduate student Aaron Sathrum used p-type GaP and GaAsP to harness enough energy from sunlight to split carbon dioxide molecules via an electrochemical reaction.
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by David Kay, Cosmos Online, 18 April 2007
source: CosmosOnline
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1224

The expense of photovoltaic cells has prevented their widespread use, but a raft of new technologies is pushing their prices down. One of them is solar slivers.  The usual weather conditions in Scotland – cold, overcast and damp – are hardly inspiring for scientists trying to figure out how to cheaply capture energy from the sun.

But in May 2000, physicist Andrew Blakers and electrical engineer Klaus Weber from the Australian National University in Canberra traveled to Glasgow for a professional conference. To their surprise, in two weeks they experienced rain just once; the long, sixteen-hour days were bright and sunny. Perhaps that helps to explain what happened there.
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Jeanette Pavini Reporting /April 20, 2007
Source: CBS Broadcasting
http://cbs5.com/consumer/local_story_110194943.html

If you want to go solar, you don’t have to commit to putting panels on your house. Portable solar charges help more people recieve the environmental benefits of solar power.  Becky Worley of Yahoo Tech showed CBS 5 Consumerwatch the Solio, one of the new wave of portable solar devices.  “The way it works, you just unfold these photovoltaic cells, you expose it to direct sunlight and it can get a full charge on its battery in 8 hours,” she said.
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Source:  Green Energy News
April 17, 2007 – Vol.12 No.4
http://www.green-energy-news.com/arch/nrgs2007/20070051.html

Honda is developing them, so is Shell in its venture it calls Avancis. Less familiar names are also working on what could be the next generation of solar cells and thus solar products: DayStar Technologies, HelioVolt, Nanosolar, W¸rth Solar and Odersun.   Those next-gen cells, CIS (Copper Indium Selenide), and their close cousins CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Diselenide), offer solar-to-electric conversion efficiencies about the same as silicon solar (efficiencies in the mid to high teens) but conceivably could be offered at a much lower cost.

The reason? CIS and CIGS are very thin, thin-film solar technologies, a 100th or thinner than traditional silicon. Very thin equates to very little material is needed to make them: The less material, the less cost. Yet the commercialization of CIS and CIGS technologies has been slowed by adequate high speed production methods. CIS and CIGS cells are difficult to make. Difficult to produce means high costs despite the lower cost of materials.
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Posted by Steph Yiu April 18, 2007 09:30AM
Source: Oregonlive.com
http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2007/04/

Here’s one way to get attention for a cause: Strap a 20-pound solar panel to your back and walk from Portland to Salem.  That’s just what a couple of marchers did in recent days, with company from 10 others. The dozen left an environmental rally Saturday in downtown Portland for the 53.5-mile walk to the Capitol. They wanted to raise awareness about global warming. (more…)