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news digest ♦ Solar


standard, while carefully considering the interests of all stakeholders.”


In its first year of operation, the Moapa Solar Project will generate enough clean energy to power approximately 100,000 average homes. The project will displace more than 178,000 metric tons of CO2, the equivalent of taking more than 34,000 cars off the road, and will displace more than 142,000 metric tons of water consumption annually.


The project will advance tribal economic competitiveness and job creation, serve as an example of tribal energy self-sufficiency and sustainability, and encourage further renewable energy projects on tribal land.


Wafer bonding enables 44.7 percent efficiency record solar cell


The modified III-V structure has four solar subcells and was grown using a new technology. The process allows the connection of two semiconductor crystals, which otherwise cannot be grown on top of each other with high crystal quality


The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Soitec, CEA-Leti and the Helmholtz Centre Berlin have achieved a new world record for the conversion of sunlight into electricity.


They used a new solar cell structure with four solar subcells.


research, and entering the roadmap at world class level, a new record efficiency of 44.7 percent was measured at a concentration of 297 suns. This indicates that 44.7 percent of the solar spectrum’s energy, from ultraviolet through to the infrared, is converted into electrical energy. This is a major step towards reducing further the costs of solar electricity and continues to pave the way to the 50 percent efficiency roadmap.


IV-characteristic for the current best four-junction solar cell under AM1.5d ASTM G173-03 spectrum at a concentration of 297 suns. The measurements were carried out at the Fraunhofer ISE CalLab (©Fraunhofer ISE)


Back in May 2013, the German-French team of Fraunhofer ISE, Soitec, CEA-Leti and the Helmholtz Centre Berlin had already announced a solar cell with 43.6 percent efficiency. Building on this result, further intensive research work and optimisation steps led to the present efficiency of 44.7 percent.


These solar cells are used in concentrator photovoltaics (CPV), a technology which achieves more than twice the efficiency of conventional PV power plants in sun-rich locations. The terrestrial use of so-called III-V multi- junction solar cells, which originally came from space technology, has prevailed to realise highest efficiencies for the conversion of sunlight to electricity.


World record solar cell with 44.7 percent efficiency, made up of four solar subcells based on III-V compound semiconductors for use in concentrator photovoltaics (©Fraunhofer ISE)


Surpassing competition after only over three years of 102 www.compoundsemiconductor.net October 2013


External quantum efficiency of the four-junction solar cell. The measurements were carried out at the Fraunhofer ISE CalLab


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