Drum roll for the solar panels of the future: a research group led by the Wuppertal Institute (Germany) has obtained solar cells with 24% efficiency, setting a new world record (previously at 20%). The doors to the photovoltaic revolution are open
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him24% efficiency for the latest generation solar cells: here is the new world record reached by a research group led by the Wuppertal Institute (Germany). 4 percentage points that bode well for even more performing solar panels.
The consolidated photovoltaic technologies are based on silicon and have reached their final stages of optimization, with little room for enormous improvements in terms of efficiency, in the ratio between the electrical power produced and the solar input (i.e. how many Watts of electrical energy obtained for each Watt of incident solar energy).
Of course you can hope for one cost reduction, which would make installation increasingly cost-effective, but this generally implies subsidies and / or reduced environmental standards for manufacturing.
The only way to a significant improvement is therefore a change of technology, something that the researchers of the Wuppertal Institute have successfully experimented, using organic material as an "exchange" material.
In our group, we also consider i organic semiconductor materials and perovskite semiconductors instead of silicon - explains Thomas Riedl, who led the research - Both technologies have shown a dizzying development in recent years and their efficiency is now comparable to that of silicon. At the same time, these technologies require substantially less material and energy in production, which makes them more sustainable with short energy payback times.
The group, however, did more, combined technologies.
@ (left) Cedric Kreusel / Wuppertal Institute; (right) Selina Olthof / University of Cologne
It becomes even more fascinating if you combine organic solar cells and perovskite in what it's called cell length - says Kai Brinkmann, first author of the work - We must remember that sunlight is a mix of various components (colors) [...] A fundamental limit of solar cells is due to the part of light that the cell does not absorb that does not convert into energy electric. Tandem cells, where two different solar cells work with two different areas of the spectrum, offer a way to overcome this problem
The key to success is the so-called 'interconnection' which connects both cells electrically optically. In other words, the two cells absorb more light together and convert just as much more, consequently increasing the overall efficiency.
To minimize losses, the researchers used ultra-thin layers of indium oxide as the interconnect with a thickness of only 1,5 nanometers and atomic layer deposition as the coating technology.
An important part of the success is the network of partners, in particular the Universities of Cologne, Potsdam, Tübingen, the Helmholtz Center in Berlin and the Max Planck Institut für Eisenforschung in Düsseldorf, whose extensive experience has helped to remove the critical issues on the road. which eventually led us to perovskite / organic tandem solar cells with a24 efficiency%, a new world record for this type of tandem
The result is in the laboratory and a bit of a road to industrialization is obviously still to go, but the team has no intention of stopping.
At the time we started this project, the perovskite / organic tandems were only about 20% efficient. We are now at 24 and the simulations show that our concept should allow us to achieve efficiencies even over 30%
Which, attention, are not science fiction, but already existing in solar cells used in space as in the Mars 'Ingenuity' drone, but difficult to apply on Earth due to the high costs that do not make the technology sustainable.
We hope that our work will contribute to a scenario where solar cells are similar in high efficiencies but at a fraction of the cost in order to be available for terrestrial use.
conclude Riedl
Renewables should already have few excuses, and the prospect is to have none at all.
The work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) program on perovskite semiconductors (SPP 2196) and published in Nature.
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Fonti: Wuppertal Institute / Nature
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