#Will 3d printing bring space-based solar power to reality? Spiderfab 3-D robotic printer Since the 1970##s, space-based solar power has been a futuristic fantasy
but the advent of 21st#century 3-D printing may bring it a step closer to reality.
It would##enable construction of large support structures for systems such as multi-hundred-kilowatt solar arrays, large solar sails,
##For#space-based solar power (SBSP), there would be two basic steps, Hoyt explained. First, the 3-D printer would build a carbon fiber truss structure that would act as a frame for the system.
if concentrating solar power was being deployed.####We haven t yet looked in detail at space-based solar,
But a just-completed design analysis for a 300-kilowatt orbital solar array verified that Spiderfab can provide the projected tenfold decrease in stowed volume
Terrestrial solar arrays have achieved grid parity Davis said, but without storage they cannot provide the baseload power utilities need.
Meanwhile, in Arizona yesterday, the state s utility regulator turned back a request by Arizona Public service (APS) to#impose steep new fees on homeowners who install solar panels#on their roofs.
In Arizona, for instance, there were 900 solar arrays installed on Arizona residential rooftops in January 2009. By June of this year, that number had grown to 18,000 with 500 more photovoltaic systems being installed each month.
homeowners receive a credit for the solar electricity they send to the grid that is used to pay for the power they use
stick it to consumers and bolster its bottom line,##Rhone Resch, chief executive of the Solar energy Industries Association,
half the planet s population may be served best with pay-as-you-go solar technology, not grid services.
when it comes to solar power for the poor. The best way to understand this is to consider the case of a villager in Tanzania.
Selling cheap basic services like solar electricity into this market through#micropayment schemes#is what makes pay-as-you-go solar not only economically viable,
powered by solar technology. The defense contractor is hoping to sell its spy rocks for surveillance, border protection
and is designed to work with PV solar panels and batteries, to continually generate water even in emergency situations.
in order to take advantage of the sun s energy, or grow indoors with the help of artificial lights. Vertical farming is promising
Recently, more and more studies have focused on pairing solar panels and wind turbines with greenhouses to provide self-generated renewable electricity on-site.
when wind and solar power interconnection requests added up to enough projects to supply three times the mandate s needs.
the country has installed an astonishing amount of solar photovoltaic (PV) power setting multiple solar power generation records along the way.
Germany had installed considerably more solar power capacity per capita than any other country. The rapid growth has slowed, however, with 3. 3 GW of PV installed in 2013,
Regardless, a recent analysis by the consulting firm Eclareon found that solar power has reached grid parity in Germany,
the price of commercial solar power is now equal to retail electricity rates. And wind power reached record output levels last year producing a massive 25.2 GW
has driven the solar power boom. But as installations continued to outpace government targets, Germany announced last year that it would begin scaling back its feed in tariff.
The vision of harvesting solar power from space and beaming it to earth has been around ever since Dr. Peter Glaser first proposed it in 1968.
What most people don realize is that solar panels in space are 10 times more efficient than those on earth
solar power industry (one launch per year. Powering the Entire Solar system At first blush, most will imagine a space-based solar array powering our energy hungry businesses on earth,
but that only part of the equation. It can be used to power an entire solar-system of devices,
It has the potential not only to continuously deliver limitless amounts of solar energy to markets On earth,
The two mirrors will be untethered from the solar panels and the separate transmission unit, requiring a far more advanced navigating system to keep them properly aligned.
Current solar technologies on the market today are too expensive and slow to produce, require Rare earth minerals and lack the efficiency to make such massive installations practical.
Solar s influence Titan Aerospace caught Google s attention thanks to its innovative dragonfly-shaped drones that are powered by its wing-mounted solar panels
whether the solar technology is advanced currently enough to deliver the kind of long-range reliability that Google will require.
Tesla and solar financier and installer Solarcity (Musk other energy company) have been quietly selling small volumes of Tesla batteries as energy storage paired with Solarcity solar projects.
Pairing battery farms with wind and solar panel farms would enable clean power to store energy
The plant is set to be built by Abengoa SA (ABG) a Spanish company that offers global renewable energy solutions. his project will help prove the economic operation of concentrated solar power technology in the Earth sunbelt,
Imergy flow batteries from low-grade vanadium will also be capable of storing more energy per kilogram than conventional vanadium flow batteries by more than twice, giving cell phone operators, solar power plant developers, microgrid owners
(or solar panels) are less. That said I loved it the first time I saw one at the Vancouver World's Fair around 1987.
#Transparent solar windows generate energy without obstructing the view Imagine being able to generate solar energy on the surface of every window
is guided to the edge of a clear plastic panel where it is converted then to electricity using thin strips of photovoltaic solar cells.
"It opens a lot of area to deploy solar energy in a non-intrusive way, "said Lunt.""It can be used on tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e reader.
"Those applications could include better solar cells,"smart"coatings, new kinds of computers and all kinds of other devices or components.
because solar panels can return power to the grid and make your meter spin backwards. Japanese companies are fascinated with net-zero energy buildings,
A 9. 5-kilowatt solar array, backed up by a 10-kilowatt-hour lithium battery and a 10-kilowatt DC car charger.
and run on stored solar power. A geothermal system with eight, 20-foot deep boreholes uses a heat pump to heat
essentially creating"living materials"that can be integrated into everyday objects and devices, from solar panels to adjustable furniture,
Improved batteries and solar cells could be produced, and biofilms with enzymes that catalyze the breakdown of cellulose could be used for the conversion of agricultural waste into biofuels.
His team is also looking at using the graphene electrodes in photovoltaic cells. Easing the pain
#Novel solar photovoltaic cells achieve record efficiency using nanoscale structures Here's how to make a powerful solar cell from indium and phosphorus:
Exposed to the sun, a solar cell employing such nanowires can turn nearly 14 percent of the incoming light into electricity#a new record that opens up more possibilities for cheap and effective solar power.
#and validated at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Solar energy systems#this novel nanowire configuration delivered nearly as much electricity as more traditional indium phosphide thin-film solar cells
That suggests such nanowire solar cells could prove cheaper #and more powerful#if the process could be industrialized,
At the same time the novel cells could be built into so-called multijunction solar cells#compound devices that incorporate several different types of semiconductor material in layers like a sandwich to absorb as much of the energy in sunlight as possible.
Such multijunction solar cells are also the most expensive type of photovoltaic, but they can be made cheaper by combining them with low-cost lenses to concentrate the sunlight onto smaller versions of the cells.
Borgstr#m, for one, suspects that nanowire solar cells will stand on their own once the production process can be simplified,
such as ultra-efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDS) and solar cells, but the technology has found mainly niche applications.
Quantum dots have shown promise for electronics, too#for example in solar cells in which a mix of quantum dots tuned to absorb different wavelengths of light could capture more of the energy in the solar spectrum.
giving materials scientists a new tool for investigating the behaviour of light in the interiors of the complex nanostructures used in lasers, light-based circuits and solar cells."
The team has mapped also the distribution of light in the silicon nanodiscs that are used as a coating on solar cells to improve efficiency,
Lukas Novotny, an optical physicist at The swiss Federal Institute of technology in Zurich, says that cathodoluminescence could be a useful tool for improving the performance of light-emitting devices and solar cells,
but proponents of a hydrogen economy say that it could be produced in vast quantities from water using excess electricity from wind turbines and solar plants.
batteries will be key to energy transport and to small-scale storage of electricity from solar panels. Long-term, large-scale storage of wind energy could best be achieved by simply storing compressed hydrogen underground.
Bigbelly streetside trash and recycling bins are already pretty smart they use solar power to compact certain materials
#How to make a perfect solar absorber The key to creating a material that would be ideal for converting solar energy to heat is tuning the material s spectrum of absorption just right:
When harnessing solar energy you want to trap it and keep it there Chou says; getting just the right spectrum of both absorption and emission is essential to efficient STPV performance.
Most of the sun s energy reaches us within a specific band of wavelengths Chou explains ranging from the ultraviolet through visible light and into the near-infrared.
which would add greatly to the complexity and expense of a solar power system. This is the first device that is able to do all these things at the same time Chou says.
and materials science to advance solar energy harvesting says Paul Braun a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who was involved not in this research.
Of course much work remains to realize a practical solar cell however the work here is one of the most important steps in that process.
and is exploring powering the device on solar energy an important consideration for poor rural areas. The research was funded by the Singapore National Research Foundation through SMART T
#Recycling old batteries into solar cells This could be a classic win-win solution: A system proposed by researchers at MIT recycles materials from discarded car batteries a potential source of lead pollution into new,
long-lasting solar panels that provide emissions-free power. The system is described in a paper in the journal Energy and Environmental science,
It is based on a recent development in solar cells that makes use of a compound called perovskite specifically,
organolead halide perovskite a technology that has progressed rapidly from initial experiments to a point where its efficiency is nearly competitive with that of other types of solar cells. t went from initial demonstrations to good efficiency in less than two years,
Already, perovskite-based photovoltaic cells have achieved power-conversion efficiency of more than 19 percent, which is close to that of many commercial silicon-based solar cells.
Initial descriptions of the perovskite technology identified its use of lead, whose production from raw ores can produce toxic residues,
the team analysis shows that the lead from a single car battery could produce enough solar panels to provide power for 30 households.
As an added advantage, the production of perovskite solar cells is a relatively simple and benign process. t has the advantage of being a low-temperature process,
and the number of steps is reducedcompared with the manufacture of conventional solar cells, Belcher says.
In a finished solar panel, the lead-containing layer would be encapsulated fully by other materials, as many solar panels are today,
limiting the risk of lead contamination of the environment. When the panels are retired eventually, the lead can simply be recycled into new solar panels. he process to encapsulate them will be the same as for polymer cells today,
Chen says. hat technology can be translated easily. t is important that we consider the life cycles of the materials in large-scale energy systems,
Old lead is as good as new Belcher believes that the recycled perovskite solar cells will be embraced by other photovoltaics researchers,
just as good for the production of perovskite solar cells as freshly produced metal. Some companies are already gearing up for commercial production of perovskite photovoltaic panels,
or microfluidic devices or solar panels that could automatically clean themselves of dust and grit. Most surfaces are passive says Kripa Varanasi an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT
For example solar panels and the mirrors used in solar-concentrating systems can quickly lose a significant percentage of their efficiency
The issue of dust basically makes the use of solar panels to be less efficient than in North america or Europe.
The new material is able to convert 85 percent of incoming solar energy into steam a significant improvement over recent approaches to solar-powered steam generation.
if you can generate steam with solar energy, it would be very useful. Ghasemi and mechanical engineering department head Gang Chen,
But initiating this reaction requires very intense solar energy about 1, 000 times that of an average sunny day.
and retain solar energy. The structure bottom layer is a carbon foam that contains pockets of air to keep the foam afloat
They found they were able to convert 85 percent of solar energy into steam at a solar intensity 10 times that of a typical sunny day.
At the time he was working on various photonics projects lasers solar cells and optical fiber that all involved a phenomenon called resonant coupling.
or in improving the efficiency of solar cells. While this analysis still leaves open questions about the precise structure of eumelanin molecules, Buehler says,
#Getting more electricity out of solar cells When sunlight shines on today solar cells, much of the incoming energy is given off as waste heat rather than electrical current.
yielding new design guidelines for using those special materials to make high-efficiency solar cells. The results are reported in the journal Nature Chemistry by MIT alumni Shane R. Yost and Jiye Lee,
However, achieving it in a functioning solar cell has proved difficult and the exact mechanism involved has become the subject of intense controversy in the field.
In 2013, they reported making the first solar cell that gives off extra electrons from high-energy visible light,
According to their estimates, applying their technology as an inexpensive coating on silicon solar cells could increase efficiency by as much as 25 percent.
The results also provide practical guidelines for designing solar cells with these materials. They show that molecular packing is important in defining the rate of fission but only to a point.
whose integrated chip restores lost power to partially shaded solar panels achieving double the energy capture improvement of similar technologies won big on Monday night at the seventh annual MIT Clean energy Prize (CEP) competition.
Solar panels on residential rooftops that are shaded partially by clouds or trees sacrifice as much as 30 percent of their energy potential over a year.
Unified Solar technology, for the first time, integrates an entire power balance circuit onto a low-cost chip that can be integrated into a solar panel to regain that lost energy. n the real world,
Existing solutions for partially shaded solar panels optimize power at the panel level. But these bulky oxesrely on costly energy storage components
you learn a lot about properties of solar cells that people often ignored as parasitic components. People wanted to get rid of them,
but we found a way to leverage them. o one has thought ever of using the solar cell as an energy storage itself,
and routing device that plugs into solar panels to power electronic devices, enabling a pay-as-you-go electricity system for people off the grid.
which turns solar cells into cogeneration systems. Sun exposure to solar panels produces about 0. 5 percent of wasted heat per Degree celsius increase.
Thermovolt modified solar cell captures that wasted energy and uses it to heat water for homes.
The two other audience choice awards went to REECYCLE, which reclaims rare earth elements from recycled electronics to create other resources,
#Excitons observed in action for the first time A quasiparticle called an exciton responsible for the transfer of energy within devices such as solar cells LEDS
For example in a solar cell an incoming photon may strike an electron kicking it to a higher energy level.
for other uses such as solar cells it is essential to minimize the trapping. The new technique should allow researchers to determine which factors are most important in increasing
which is the defining characteristic of most materials for low-cost solar cells and LEDS Baldo says.
#A molecular approach to solar power It an obvious truism, but one that may soon be outdated:
The problem with solar power is that sometimes the sun doesn shine. Now a team at MIT and Harvard university has come up with an ingenious workaround a material that can absorb the sun heat
or powering heat-based industrial processes this could provide an opportunity for the expansion of solar power into new realms. t could change the game,
not electricity, might be desired the outcome of solar power. For example, in large parts of the world the primary cooking fuel is wood or dung
and better photochromic compounds and composite materials that optimize the storage of solar energy in chemical bonds, Kanai says.
and especially in solar thermophotovoltaicsharnessing solar energy by using it to heat a material, which in turn radiates light of a particular color.
That light emission can then be harnessed using a photovoltaic cell tuned to make maximum use of that color of light.
which could one day be used to design more complex devices such as solar cells self-healing materials
and solar cells Lu says. The researchers are interested also in coating the biofilms with enzymes that catalyze the breakdown of cellulose
In a new Nature Materials paper, the researchers report boosting plantsability to capture light energy by 30 percent by embedding carbon nanotubes in the chloroplast,
Supercharged photosynthesis The idea for nanobionic plants grew out of a project in Strano lab to build self-repairing solar cells modeled on plant cells.
As a next step, the researchers wanted to try enhancing the photosynthetic function of chloroplasts isolated from plants, for possible use in solar cells.
Among other things, she is now studying the financing of small-scale distributed solar power in areas of Kenya without either a formal grid or established banking systems;
even at the extremely low power levels characteristic of tiny solar cells. Previous ultralow-power converters that used the same approach had efficiencies of only 40 or 50 percent.
Where most of its ultralow-power predecessors could use a solar cell to either charge a battery
Ups and downs The circuit chief function is to regulate the voltages between the solar cell, the battery,
and falls depends on the voltage generated by the solar cell, which is highly variable. So the timing of the switch throws has to vary, too.
whose selection is determined by the solar cell voltage. Once again, when the capacitor fills, the switches in the inductor path are flipped. n this technology space,
and provide backup for renewable energy sources that produce intermittent output, such as wind and solar power. But Chiang says the technology is suited also well to applications where weight
#New technique helps probe performance of organic solar cell materials A research team led by North carolina State university has developed a new technique for determining the role that a material's structure has on the efficiency of organic solar cells
which are candidates for low-cost next generation solar power. The researchers have used the technique to determine that materials with a highly organized structure at the nanoscale are not more efficient at creating free electrons than poorly organized structures#a finding
There have been a lot of studies looking at the efficiency of organic solar cells but the energy conversion process involves multiple steps
Broadly speaking organic solar cells convert light into electric current in four steps. First the cell absorbs sunlight which excites electrons in the active layer of the cell.
In previous organic solar cell research there was ambiguity about whether differences in efficiency were due to dissociation or charge collection#because there was no clear method for distinguishing between the two.
so that it runs parallel to the long axis of organic solar cell molecules it will be absorbed; but if the light runs perpendicular to the molecules it passes right through it.
The researchers created highly organized nanostructures within a portion of the active layer of an organic solar cell meaning that the molecules in that portion all ran the same way.
or just the disorganized section#even though they were on the same active layer of the same solar cell.
and nanostructure features are needed to advance organic solar cell technology. Explore further: Hybrid materials could smash the solar efficiency ceiling More information:
Awartani O. Kudenov M. W. Kline R. J. and O'connor B. T. 2015) In-Plane Alignment in Organic solar cells to Probe the Morphological Dependence of Charge Recombination.
#Researchers create novel nanobowl optical concentrator for organic solar cell Geometrical light trapping is a simple and promising strategy to largely improve the optical absorption and efficiency of solar cells.
Solar energy is one of the most promising renewable energy resources and represents a clean and ultimate replacement for fossil fuels in the future.
Organic photovoltaic (OPV) has been regarded as one of the promising candidates for large-scale low-cost and efficient solar energy harvesting.
Meanwhile light trapping by nano-textured substrate is an appealing strategy to improve solar cell efficiency.
The novel nanobowl optical concentrator developed by Professor Zhiyong Fan can largely enhance the optical absorption in the active layer of organic solar cell
In addition they have investigated the effect of geometry of nanobowl on the solar cell performance and three types of nanobowl with pitch of 1000 nm 1200 nm and 1500 nm were studied.
Solar cells based on nanobowl with pitch of 1000 nm exhibited the best photon absorption in photoactive layer leading to the highest short-circuit current density of 9. 41 ma cm-2 among all nanobowl substrates.
With open-circuit voltage of 0. 573 V and fill factor of 57.9%this nanobowl solar cell achieved a solar energy conversion efficiency of 3. 12
Solar energy will have the greatest impact on the European energy system if focus is on transport of solar power from North africa and Southern Europe to Northern europe."
"Reducing energy losses during electric power transmission is one of the most important factors for the energy systems of the future,
the researchers tested a number of molecules that are used also within organic solar cell research at Chalmers.
whether the crystalline structure of the materials is mismatched-lowering the manufacturing cost for a wide variety of semiconductor devices such as solar cells lasers and LEDS.
For example in photonic devices like solar cells lasers and LEDS the junction is where photons are converted into electrons or vice versa.
This manufacturing cost is a major reason why semiconductor devices such as solar cells lasers and LEDS remain very expensive.
#Lengthening the life of high capacity silicon electrodes in rechargeable lithium batteries A new study will help researchers create longer-lasting higher-capacity lithium rechargeable batteries
In a study published in the journal ACS Nano researchers showed how a coating that makes high capacity silicon electrodes more durable could lead to a replacement for lower-capacity graphite electrodes.
Understanding how the coating works gives us an indication of the direction we need to move in to overcome the problems with silicon electrodes said materials scientist Chongmin Wang of the Department of energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Silicon electrodes aren't very durable#after a few dozen recharges they can no longer hold electricity. That's partly due to how silicon takes up lithium#like a sponge.
and thoroughly#an improvement over earlier silicon electrodes#but only partly alleviates the fracturing problem. Last year materials scientist Chunmei Ban and her colleagues at the National Renewable energy Laboratory in Golden Colorado and the University of Colorado Boulder found that they could cover silicon nanoparticles with a rubberlike coating made from aluminum glycerol.
Ban's group#which developed the coating for silicon electrodes called alucone and is currently the only group that can create alucone-coated silicon particles#took high magnification images of the particles in an electron microscope.
and inorganic-based energy devices such as battery solar cell and self-powered devices that require high temperature processes s
#New nanocomposites for aerospace and automotive industries The Center for Research in Advanced Materials (CIMAV) has developed reinforced graphite nanoplatelets seeking to improve the performance of solar cell materials.
#Graphene/nanotube hybrid benefits flexible solar cells Rice university scientists have invented a novel cathode that may make cheap, flexible dye-sensitized solar cells practical.
The discovery was reported online in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Journal of Materials Chemistry A. Dye-sensitized solar cells have been in development
While they are not nearly as efficient as silicon-based solar cells in collecting sunlight and transforming it into electricity,
dye-sensitized solar cells have advantages for many applications, according to co-lead author Pei Dong, a postdoctoral researcher in Lou's lab."The first is that they're low-cost,
The hybrid material solves two issues that have held back commercial application of dye-sensitized solar cells,
Lou's lab built and tested solar cells with nanotube forests of varying lengths The shortest,
Tests found that solar cells made from the longest nanotubes produced the best results and topped out at nearly 18 milliamps of current per square centimeter
The new dye-sensitized solar cells were as much as 20 percent better at converting sunlight into power,
This approach to growing nanomaterials will improve the efficiency of various devices including solar cells and fuel cells.
These semiconducting nanowires could also replace thin films that cover today's solar panels. Current panels can process only 20 percent of the solar energy they take in.
By applying the nanowires the surface area of the panels would increase and allow more efficient solar energy capture and conversion.
The wires could also be applied in the biomedical field to maximize heat production in hyperthermia treatment of cancer.
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