Solar ♦ news digest
quantum dots effectively enhanced overall power conversion efficiency by as high as 24.65 percent compared with traditional GaAs-based devices. Further analysis of the quantum efficiency response showed that the luminescent downshifting effect can be as much as 6.6 percent of the entire enhancement of photogenerated current.
This is a brief overview of ‘A Highly Efficient Hybrid GaAs Solar Cell Based on Colloidal- Quantum-Dot-Sensitization’ by Hau-Vei Han et al, Nature Scientific Reports 4, Article number: 5734 doi:10.1038/srep05734
UK Power Plant to be based on Solar Frontier’s CIGS technology
Solar Frontier to provide solar panels for 8.1 megawatt power station in Banwell, UK
Tokyo-based Solar Frontier, which makes CIGS (copper, indium, gallium and selenium) solar panels, will work with German firm New Energy for the World on an 8.1 megawatt solar power plant in Banwell, UK.
Solar Frontier will provide the electronic components, including CIGS solar modules, which are expected to deliver 9.1 GWh of electricity per year. The contract was signed at the recent Intersolar trade show in Munich, and construction is scheduled to start in September, 2014.
Key to this achievement was Soitec’s four-junction solar cell based on wafer bonding technology and developed in cooperation with Fraunhofer ISE. This four-junction solar cell was implemented into the FLATCON module. The module aperture area, defined as the surface area of the module exposed to light, is 832 cm2
a factor of 230 suns onto fifty-two 7 mm2 solar cells with the help of fifty-two 16 cm2 lenses.
. The sunlight is concentrated by miniature Fresnel
The high module efficiency was measured under Concentrator Standard Testing Conditions, or CSTC, and marks the best value ever achieved for a photovoltaic module.
World Record for Concentrator Photovoltaics
36.7 percent efficiency for module using highly efficient multi-junction solar cells
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE have announced a world record efficiency of 36.7 percent for the Institute’s concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) technology, which is the basis of the FLATCON module. The technology, which uses Fresnel lenses to collect sunlight and focus it onto miniature highly efficient
«Naturally we are incredibly excited about this high module efficiency,» says Andreas Bett, who has led the CPV research at Fraunhofer ISE over many years. For his efforts Bett has received many awards, among them the German Environmental Award 2012, together with Hansjörg Lerchenmüller of Soitec Solar. «This success shows that the high efficiencies of Soitec›s novel four-junction solar cells can be transferred to the module level.»
Only several months ago, Fraunhofer ISE together with Soitec, the French research center CEA-Leti, and the Helmholtz Center in Berlin announced a new solar cell world record of 44.7 percent under concentrated light. This record cell consisted of four sub-cells made up of the compound semiconductors GaInP, GaAs, GaInAs and InP respectively. In comparison to standard silicon solar cells, the manufacture of four-junction solar cells is more expensive so that up to now their terrestrial applications have been exclusively in concentrator systems.
Issue VI 2014
www.compoundsemiconductor.net 113
solar cells, has been improved by adapting the concentrating lens to a new solar cell structure.
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