Germans Claim New Solar Cell Breakthrough  

Greentech Media has a look at a new solar power efficiency record set in Germany - Germans Claim New Solar Cell Breakthrough.

A German research institute has squeezed 41.1 percent out of a solar cell built with highly efficient materials, though whether the expensive technology could find mass-market adoption remains to be seen.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems announced its achievement Friday and said it is working with Azure Power and Concentrix Solar to commercialize the research.

Scientists at Fraunhofer built the three-layer cell using gallium-indium-phosphide, gallium-indium-arsenide and germanium. The cell was able to convert 41.1 percent of the sunlight that hits it when researchers concentrate the sunlight 454 times, Fraunhofer said.

Using concentrated sunlight is key to make this project more than just a quest for high efficiencies. Gallium arsenide and other semiconductor compounds in the same family are expensive compared with silicon, which is less efficient but is much cheaper. Most of the solar cells made for the market today use silicon. Those cells are then assembled into panels for installation.

Gallium-arsenide solar cells have been used to run satellites and other space crafts, government-funded projects that don't put a premium on using the cheapest materials possible.

Cost, of course, is a much bigger deal for solar companies competing to build power plants or sell solar panels to consumers. By using concentrated sunlight, which can be done by with mirrors and lenses, a solar panel wouldn't need as much gallium-arsenide cells to generate ample electricity. This is the sales pitch from a growing number of companies in the emerging concentrating solar sector.

Concentrix is one of the better-known concentrating solar companies and a Fraunhofer spinoff. Last fall, the company opened a factory to make concentrating solar panels. It has an initial production capacity of 25 megawatts per year, but could expand to up to 100 megawatts per year.

Concentrix's best solar panel has an average efficiency of 27.2 percent, the company said. Solar cells typically lose some of their efficiencies once they are assembled into a panel, so the efficiency numbers for solar panels are lower than the figures for the cells.

SolFocus, based in Mountain View, Calif., is another concentrating solar company that has attracted a lot of attention.

Greentech Media also has a report on the booming solar power market in Spain - Spain Installed More Than 3GW of Solar in 2008.

How big was the Spanish solar market in 2008? Three times bigger than many analysts have anticipated.

Spain's National Energy Commission (CNE) this week estimated that about 3.1 gigawatts of solar power were connected to the grid from January through November 2008, said Gordon Johnson, head of the alternative energy research at Hapoalim Securities in New York City.

Since the Spanish program began, around 3.75 gigawatts have been installed there. The 3.1-gigawatt number is an estimate, because only nearly 2 gigawatts worth of the installations have been registered with the government and connected to the grid. But the CNE expects the final number to be higher because it's still collecting registration data.

At more than 3 gigawatts, the Spanish market growth far surpassed estimates by many analysts. Many had believed the country would only add around 1 gigawatts of new capacity in 2008.

One last piece of solar news from Greentech Media looks at a novel "three-in-one" solar system from Colorado's BrightPhase Energy which combines photovoltaics, solar thermal and natural light - Can You Go Cheaper Than First Solar?.

BrightPhase Energy has cross-bred a skylight with a venetian blind and a lot of solar technology to come up with what could turn out to be a highly efficient energy system for homes or low-slung commercial buildings.

The Photensity essentially allows the building owner to exploit the sun in three ways. First, it contains silicon solar cells rated at about an 18 percent efficiency that convert sunlight into electric power. Second, a fluid-filled pipe collects heat from the sun, which can then be used to heat water in the building or run heat-driven cooling systems. A concentrator does double duty by focusing heat for the pipe and light for the solar cells.

Third, because the photovoltaic cells are mounted on separated strips that resemble the slats in venetian blinds, the Photensity also lets light into the building, reducing the need for internal lights.

If you convert the thermal energy (in btus) and the light (measured in lumens) into watts, the entire system produces power for around $1.80 per watt completely installed.

"We are roughly two to three times more energy dense than some of the better PV modules out there," said David Buemi, co-founder and vice president of sales and marketing who added that the company discounts the amount of heat that a customer might use in its calculations.

Granted, that's a best case scenario coming from the marketing guy of the company, but if it's even somewhat close, it rivals the numbers from the best solar makers. First Solar in November said it had managed to drop the price of producing its cadmium telluride solar panels to $1.08 a watt and sources said that the figure has dropped to 75 cents a watt in some of its factories in Malaysia (see ty-milestone-says-report-5389.html">First Solar Reaches Grid-Parity Milestone, Says Report).

But that's just the cost of the modules, which only accounts for around one-third of the cost of a solar system completely installed. A $40 million system for Sempra Generation near Boulder City, Nev. – which consists of 168,300 First Solar panels – costs around $3.17 per watt fully installed, according to a recent note from Mark Bachman, an equity analyst at Pacific Crest.