Color matters: GreenSun Energy colored solar technology

One of the most common ways to turn the sun’s energy into electricity is by persuading silicon to give up some of its electrons. But it’s also quite expensive, so any innovation that helps reduce the cost of solar cell production is welcome. Researchers in Israel have come up with a cell that uses only 20% of the silicon in a standard cell yet yields similar amounts of electricity. It does this by diffusing any light that falls on its surface and sends it off to photovoltaic collector strips on each of its sides. And it doesn’t even need bright sunlight to operate.

In a nutshell, traditional solar collectors are made of thin strips of silicon covered by transparent plates. As the sun hits the plate, electrons are knocked out of the silicon atom producing current. A team of researchers led by internationally-renowned solar guru Prof Renata Reisfeld have taken a glass plate, given it light diffusing properties and attached strips of silicon to its edges.

According to the researchers, a mixture of different flourescent dyes concentrates visible and UV light (but not heat) onto the surface of the plate. Rather than simply passing through the plate, the light is persuaded to flow to the sides by metal nanoparticles, where thin strips of photovoltaic silicon wait to surrender their electrons. The interaction of the dyes and the nanoparticles helps ensure that just the right amount of energy hits the silicon to knock out the electrons, leading to improved cell efficiency.

This effectively means that as a cell doesn’t need direct sunlight to operate – it can go on producing power long after traditional full silicon cells have stopped, albeit less efficiently under cloud or partial shade conditions. As you can see in this video, no matter where the light source comes from, the colored glass disperses it to the edge where photovoltaic collectors wait to convert it into electricity.

Read more . . .

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Tags: bright sunlight, colored glass, electrons, glass plate, metal nanoparticles, renata, shade conditions, silicon cells, solar cell, solar cell production, solar collectors, solar energy, solar technology, uv light

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Economist, Innovation, Project Energy, environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.