{"id":328,"date":"2016-01-27T11:41:03","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T16:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/?p=328"},"modified":"2016-01-28T21:22:27","modified_gmt":"2016-01-29T02:22:27","slug":"new-material-could-increase-solar-cell-efficiency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/new-material-could-increase-solar-cell-efficiency\/","title":{"rendered":"New material could increase solar cell efficiency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers who are trying to boost the efficiency of solar devices made a recent breakthrough that could improve solar cell performance drastically.<\/p>\n<p>The breakthrough isn&#8217;t in the form of a new material to replace silicone &#8212; which is currently used in most solar cells &#8212; but rather comes through a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/news\/545161\/promising-new-solar-material-boosts-performance-of-silicon\/\" title=\"combination of silicon with a new material\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>combination of silicon with a new material<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The promising class of materials, called <strong>perovskites<\/strong>, can combine with conventional silicon cells with a to ultimately boost the efficiency of the solar cell by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/news\/545161\/promising-new-solar-material-boosts-performance-of-silicon\/\" title=\"several percentage points\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>several percentage points<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" width=\"550\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Promising Solar Material Could Upgrade Silicon Cells <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Ta98ihLSGA\">https:\/\/t.co\/Ta98ihLSGA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; MIT Tech Review (@techreview) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/techreview\/status\/685177358593036288\">January 7, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Improvements in solar cell efficiency<\/h2>\n<p>Right now, even the most efficient solar cells have an efficiency of approximately 17 to 20 percent. Late in 2015, SolarCity touted <a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/solarcity-touts-new-rooftop-solar-panel-as-the-most-efficient-in-the-world\/\" title=\"the most efficient rooftop solar in the world\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>the most efficient rooftop solar in the world<\/strong><\/a>, only to be <a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/panasonic-claims-to-own-the-most-efficient-rooftop-solar-panel-in-the-world\/\" title=\"trumped by Panasonic\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>trumped by Panasonic<\/strong><\/a> just days later. Both SolarCity and Panasonic claimed efficiencies of 22 percent or more.<\/p>\n<div id=\"inlink\"><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/panasonic-claims-to-own-the-most-efficient-rooftop-solar-panel-in-the-world\/\" title=\"Panasonic claims to own the most efficient rooftop solar panel in the world\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/solar-panels_2p783p-150x150.jpg\" title=\"Panasonic claims to own the most efficient rooftop solar panel in the world\" alt=\"Panasonic claims to own the most efficient rooftop solar panel in the world\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/panasonic-claims-to-own-the-most-efficient-rooftop-solar-panel-in-the-world\/\" title=\"Panasonic claims to own the most efficient rooftop solar panel in the world\"><h4>Panasonic claims to own the most efficient rooftop solar panel in the world<\/h4><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/panasonic-claims-to-own-the-most-efficient-rooftop-solar-panel-in-the-world\/\" title=\"Panasonic claims to own the most efficient rooftop solar panel in the world\" class=\"hide375\">Read more<\/a><\/div>\n<p>With the new breakthrough tied to <strong>perovskites<\/strong>, researchers say that a combined silicon-perovskite &#8220;tandem&#8221; device could top 25 percent efficiency. This potential increase up to 25 percent efficiency would be a major leap in even the reported efficiency of available devices. They also say that it&#8217;s not &#8220;unrealistic to think 28 or even 30 percent efficiency is possible within just a few years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>Perovskite questions remain<\/h2>\n<p>Perovskite&#8217;s sensitivity to moisture and air and overall durability are still question marks, but, nonetheless, researchers say that a commercial product\u2014aimed at silicon panel manufacturers could be ready in 2017.<\/p>\n<span class=\"source-attribution\">Source &rarr; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/news\/545161\/promising-new-solar-material-boosts-performance-of-silicon\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">MIT Tech Review<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers trying to boost the efficiency of solar devices made a recent breakthrough that could improve solar cell performance drastically. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16,3,7,30],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solar","tag-solar-cells","tag-solar-energy","tag-solar-panels","tag-technology"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}