Archives for May 2009
World’s Highest Efficiency in Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
22 May 2009 | Green Technology | 2 Comments
The majority of silicon wafers used for solar cells are Czochralski(CZ) single crystalline and directional solidification, or cast, multicrystalline (mc) material.The split between the two types of wafer is presently about 55% mc-Si and 45% CZ-Si.Until 1995 CZ wafers represented 60% of the substrates used by industry and mc-Si wafers around 25%.The fast scale up of commercially available multicrystalline wafers changed the picture rapidly.The remained of the silicon substrates used by the industry are non-wafered sheets or ribbons that are of different types and have recently gained significant production figures, following long development phases.
Sanyo Electric Co. recently announced that they have surpassed the old record, creating the world’s highest efficiency silicon solar cells.HIT solar cells are 23% more efficient than normal solar cells, which means that Sanyo Electric Co. increased rate of solar cell efficiency by 0.7%.The secret of this improvement was based on reduction in optical absorption loss.
“The company stated that their new HIT solar cells consists of a single thins layer of a crystalline silicon sandwiched in between two layers of high quality ultra-thin amorphous silicon layers. These layers improve the quality of the heterojunction and also allow more sunlight to hit the power generating silicon surface. Other than this, a reduction in resistance loss also allowed Sanyo to make the cells highly efficient.” – www.ecofriend.org
Top 5 Renewable Energy Sources
19 May 2009 | Alternative Energy | No Comments
The main interest regarding to alternative energy comes from the undesirable effects of pollution both from burning fossil fuels and from radioactive waste by-products.Renewable energy sources are environmentaly friendly energy sources that capture their energy from existing flows of energy, from on-going natural processes, such as sunshine, wind, flowing water and geotermal heat flows.
5 Times More Effective Bi-Metallic Catalyst
16 May 2009 | Green News | 1 Comment
Researchers from Washington University, lead by Younan Xia, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, has developed a bimetallic catalyst that is almost five times more efficient than other commercial catalysts.This type of catalysts could enable some cheaper fuel cell technology.The operation principle of this technology is based on the use of platinum and palladium and also using nanotechnology.
Konarka’s Flexible Solar Cells.Electricity-Generating Window
11 May 2009 | Solar Power | No Comments
In an earlier post we talked about some solar blinds that were designed to light your room with some solar panels able to convert solar energy into electricity. “These SuniT solar blinds have been designed by Yoon Lee designer and have a lot of advantages that are very useful every day. These solar blinds can warm and light any room where are installed in the cheapest way possible. The exterior of these blinds are equipped with solar cells which can transmit solar energy in an efficient way behind of the blind“.
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ,Insensitive to Wind Direction
10 May 2009 | Wind Power | 1 Comment
“It has been estimated that the total wind power in the atmosphere averages about 3.6 × 1012 kW, which is an annual energy of about 107,000 quads (1 quad = 2.931 × 1011 kWh). Only a fraction of this wind energy can be extracted, estimated to be a maximum of 4000 quads per year. According to what is commonly known as the Betz limit, a maximum of 59% of this power can be extracted by a wind machine. Practical machines actually extract from 5 to 45% of the available power. Because the available wind power varies with the cube of wind speed, it is very important to find areas with high average wind speeds to locate wind machines.” – http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Wind+energy