Professor devises new form of solar cell

NF Reporter · 11-27-2006, 07:17 PM

AP - A University of Idaho professor is devising a new form of solar cell she says could lead to a breakthrough that would make solar energy commercially feasible.

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limainfinita · 11-30-2006, 01:55 PM

The point about solar energy is that is not comercial at all, I think big companies doesnt spend to much money in research because get money back with profit is not available at this time.

SOlar energy is a good option but need to be more developed to be a real option

waltky · 08-16-2008, 12:49 AM

Calif. goin' solar...

Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California
August 14, 2008 - Companies will build two solar power plants in California that together will put out more than 12 times as much electricity as the largest such plant today, the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale.

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The plants will cover 12.5 square miles of central California with solar panels, and in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store. The power will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric, which is under a state mandate to get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The utility said that it expected the new plants, which will use photovoltaic technology to turn sunlight directly into electricity, to be competitive with other renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and solar thermal plants, which use the sun’s heat to boil water.

“These market-leading projects we have in California are something that can be extrapolated around the world,” Jennifer Zerwer, a spokeswoman for the utility, said. “It’s a milestone.” Though the California installations will generate 800 megawatts at times when the sun is shining brightly, they will operate for fewer hours of the year than a coal or nuclear plant would and so will produce a third or less as much total electricity. OptiSolar, a company that has just begun making a type of solar panel with a thin film of active material, will install 550 megawatts in San Luis Obispo County. The SunPower Corporation, which uses silicon-crystal technology, will build about 250 megawatts at a different location in the same county.

The scale is a leap forward. “If you’re going to make a difference, you’ve got to do it big,” said Randy Goldstein, the chief executive of OptiSolar. The scale of the two plants will “bring a new paradigm to bear” for the industry, he said. At 800 megawatts total, the new plants will greatly exceed the scale of previous solar installations. The largest photovoltaic installation in the United States, 14 megawatts, is at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, using SunPower panels.

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waltky · 09-07-2008, 04:56 AM

80-Day, Solar-Powered Race Planned for 2009...

Adventurer Takes Solar-Powered Joy Ride
Sept. 6, 2008 : Man travels around the world in a car powered by nothing but the sun.

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Swiss adventurer Louis Palmer is tackling the world's global energy crisis on three wheels at 35 miles per hour. More than a year after he set off from the European Sustainable Energy Forum in Lucerne, Switzerland, 36-year-old Palmer is on track to become the first person ever to travel around the world in a car without a drop of gas -- proving, he says, that free fuel for life is not a fantasy of the future. "I am on a mission to teach people that we already have the solutions we need to make a better world," Palmer told ABCNews.com this week.

The brightly painted two-seater, about the size of a go-cart, was first conceived when Palmer was 14 years old. Twenty-two years later, the bright lines of his colored pencils have come to life as a joint venture between four Swiss universities. The project took three years and grew to include more than 200 students. Palmer says he decided to give up the two hours he spent watching television each day and use the time to recruit sponsorship for his project. In the end, it was two German, not Swiss, companies that provided Palmer with what he calls "the heart and soul" of the vehicle.

The German company Q-Cells agreed to provide the solar panel trailer, worth more than $5,000. On a sunny day, these panels provide around 60 miles of power. Zebra Battery provided the two 250-pound recyclable batteries, worth $15,000 dollars each, which store combined energy from the solar panels and the regular electric power outlets Palmer plugs into each night. In total, the car can go 200 miles without recharging. Upon his arrival at George Washington University Law School, in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, Palmer and his crew of three had driven 27,000 miles, visiting 28 countries and hundreds of cities. At each stop, Palmer seeks out audiences to make his case with a 45-minute Power Point presentation.

More ABC News: Adventurer Makes History With Solar-Powered Joy Ride

thrasholdtimid · 09-20-2008, 11:18 AM

Modern dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) technology was built upon nanoparticle wide bandgap semiconductor photoanodes. While versatile and robust, the sintered nanoparticle architecture exhibits exceedingly slow electron transport that ultimately restricts the diversity of feasible redox mediators. The small collection of suitable mediators limits both our understanding of an intriguing heterogeneous system and the performance of these promising devices. Recently, a number of pseudo-1D photoanodes that exhibit accelerated charge transport and greater materials flexibility were fabricated. The potential of these alternative photoanode architectures for advancing, both directly and indirectly, the performance of DSSCs is explored.