Solar Cells Info

By James W. Crawley, Jul 27, 2007
Source: scnow.com
http://www.scnow.com/midatlantic/scp/news.apx.-content-articles-FMN-2007-07-27-0022.html

Calling all inventors: Build a better power source for soldiers and the Pentagon will beat a path to your door. And, pay you a cool $1 million.  To lighten the heavy load of batteries carried by troops to power radios, night-vision goggles, satellite navigation units, laptops and other electronics, the military is offering prizes for building the best wearable power pack. Oh, and it has to supply the juice for four days and weigh less than 9 pounds.
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Source: Associated Press/ July 24, 2007
http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070724/NEWS01/70724002/-1/DW

DOVER — Chemical maker DuPont Co. will lead a federally funded effort to develop and test prototype high-efficiency solar cells that could improve the lives of U.S. military troops, the company said Monday.  DuPont has joined with the University of Delaware to establish the Very High Efficiency Solar Cell Consortium, which initially will focus on developing affordable portable battery chargers based on ultrahigh efficiency solar cells. The announcement follows the university’s demonstration of a viable design for a solar cell with a potential efficiency increase of 30 percent. (more…)

Golden, Colo., July 25, 2007
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/86778.html

U.S. Energy Department researchers and Innovalight Inc. have found that quantum dot materials may improve efficiency of silicon solar cells.  Researchers at the department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory have shown that a new and important effect called Multiple Exciton Generation occurs efficiently in silicon nanocrystals. MEG results in the formation of more than one electron per absorbed photon.
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Edwin Cartlidge, PhysicsWorld.com /Jul 2, 2007
Feature Article
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/30345

Nanotechnology could transform solar cells from niche products to devices that provide a significant fraction of the world’s energy, as Edwin Cartlidge discusses.

The burning of skin on a hot summer’s day, the awesome power of a tornado or the existence of a simple blade of grass all testify to one thing: the huge amount of energy transmitted to us from the Sun. In a single hour the Sun delivers the same amount of energy as consumed by all of humanity in a year – about 5 × 1020 J – and in 36 hours releases as much energy as exists in the Earth’s estimated oil reserves. When you combine this with the fact that solar energy is essentially inexhaustible, available to everyone the world over and generates no greenhouse gases or other harmful pollutants, it seems hard to imagine why we do not make greater use of it. (more…)

Source: photonics.com /August 2007
http://www.photonics.com/content/spectra/2007/August/news/88445.aspx

Organic solar cells that convert 6.5 percent of incoming light into usable power have been created with a design approach that incorporates two multilayered parts that act together to boost output.  Although organic solar cells have been around for years, their relatively low conversion efficiencies — in the neighborhood of 5 percent — have been an obstacle to widespread commercial use.
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Tim Hayes, Optics.org / Jul 24, 2007
Source:
http://optics.org/cws/article/research/30632

Linking two organic solar cells with different absorption characteristics allows a wider range of the spectrum to be used.   A US-Korea research team has developed organic solar cells with a power-conversion efficiency of 6.5% at illuminations of 200 milliwatts/cm2, compared with the 5% or less they claim to have previously been attained by polymer cell structures (Science, 317, 222). (more…)

Dye-sensitive Solar Cells, developed at Ohio State Univ., could be future of Green Power
3 August 2007
Source: Casavaria.com
http://casavaria.com/sentido/environment/2007/07-0803-pink-solar.htm

As environmental groups, lobbyists and the general public push for more environmentally friendly industrial practices, scientists are finding innovative ways to bring down costs and increase the efficiency of renewable resources. The dye-sensitive solar cells (DSSC), with a pinkish sheen, now being developed at Ohio State University, are an example of the type of engineering innovation that could bring about a genuine green-power revolution.
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Iain Thomson, vnunet.com 01 Aug 2007
Source: vnunet.com
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2195442/solar-cells-break-efficiency

Researchers at the University of Delaware (UD) have developed a solar cell that can convert sunlight to power with 42.8 per cent efficiency – a new record.  Following the team’s success the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ( DARPA) has authorised an extension to funding so that the team can built the machinery to manufacture the panels on a large scale.
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R. Colin Johnson, EE Times, August 1, 2007
Source: EETimes Online
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201202360

A new composite material for plastic solar cells, formulated at Ohio State University, offers what researchers there claim is the best bet yet for beating the relatively high cost of grid-supplied electricity. Building on the best aspects of previous attempts to construct organic dye-sensitized solar cells, these researchers promise to best today’s inorganic silicon-based solar cells, and beat the cost of traditional electricity generation sources in just a few years. (more…)

Vancouver, B.C., June 26, 2007
Source: Xantrex Technology Inc. /press release
http://www.xantrex.com/web/did/1706/readnews.asp

Xantrex Technology Inc. (TSX:XTX) today announced the launch of the Xantrex XW System, the first fully-integrated, battery-based system, designed for residential and commercial solar and backup power applications. Engineered using a complete systems approach, Xantrex has designed the XW System to stand out from its competition, with a reliable, clean, compact design and integrated balance-of-systems components.
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