Science: Innovative Use of Plastics Could Cheaply Double Solar Cell Output

[ElNono]

"In standard solar cells, much energy is lost (as heat) from photons mismatched to the capability of silicon to capture them. A new technique uses a pentacene layer to down-convert each hot (un-captureable) electron (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-breakthrough-double-solar-energy-output-20111216,0,3897047.story) to two electrons that can be captured by standard silicon cells."
You can read more at the University of Texas research group's web page (http://zhu.cm.utexas.edu/).

[mouse]

:wakeup

[TDMVPDPOY]

dont forget what the govt gives, takes back in the other hand....

[Winehole23]

do the scientists hold the patents, or does the institution? i confess total ignorance of how this works....

[Trainwreck2100]

do the scientists hold the patents, or does the institution? i confess total ignorance of how this works....

how it works,

there's innovation, then said innovation gets bought by people who don't want innovation, then nothing.

[Winehole23]

old tech buys the patents, innovation gets swept under the rug.

[Winehole23]

I thought UT was good at commercial spinoffs, but what you say sounds plausible too.

[boutons_deux]

There's tons of innovation in solar. This looks like a good one, a fully integrated system from a single source vs installers need to design custom systems integrated from several sources:

http://www.greenvolts.com/system

If TX would get smart and offer feed-in tariffs to business and residential solar providers, this problem could be lessened:

Incentives needed to bring power generation to Texas

If extreme weather results in a significantly-higher than normal number of forced generation outages and high electrical demand, the ERCOT system could have insufficient resources available to serve that demand. This insufficiency would result in the need for rotating outages to maintain the integrity of the system as a whole.”

The grid serving most of Texas will not have enough electric generation to meet the demand. The ERCOT market is currently below the generation reserve margin requirement of 13.75 percent — and we will likely remain below that requirement for the next 10 years unless a number of contributing factors change. The generation reserve margin is the unused capacity we should have for emergencies and spikes in demand.

By 2014 and 2015 reserve margins are projected to be roughly 7.64 percent and 3.55 percent, respectively. Given the drought and the serious negative impacts to generation resulting from proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules, the reliability of our system will be uncertain.


Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Incentives-needed-to-bring-power-generation-to-2405870.php#ixzz1gupDwhHC

====

There will have to be investment in the grid, but TX is one of the few states where its grid is not connected to/dependent on other states.

Of course, the free market will provide the solution, right?

Right now, CPS will allow meter to run backwards when a residence is providing more solar power to the grid than consuming, but CPS credits you $0.2/Kwh while charging you $.10Kwh.

One financial incentive will probably be utilities charging (substantially?) more in peak-hours, and (substantially?) less in off-peak hours. So peak demand would be shifted to off-peak hours.

[Agloco]

do the scientists hold the patents, or does the institution? i confess total ignorance of how this works....

The scientist. However, depending on the funding source, the institution is entitled to a split of the net proceeds. If and when the investigator leaves, they take the patent rights with them (again, contingent on the funding source).

[Winehole23]

thx

[Agloco]

Not trying to steal Nono's thunder, but these might be interesting as well:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-scientists-solar-cell-electrons-photocurrent.html


(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have reported the first solar cell that produces a photocurrent that has an external quantum efficiency greater than 100 percent when photoexcited with photons from the high energy region of the solar spectrum.

QE > 1?

:wow

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-cheap-quantum-dot-solar.html


(PhysOrg.com) -- It typically takes a day or two to prepare quantum dot solar cells in the conventional multifilm architecture. Now a team of researchers is reducing the preparation time of quantum dot solar cells to less than an hour by changing the form to a one-coat quantum dot solar paint. Although the paint form is currently about five times less efficient than the highest recorded efficiency for the multifilm form, the researchers predict that the efficiency can be improved, which could lead to a simple and economically viable way to prepare solar cells.


http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-dye-efficient-solar-energy-technology.html



Dr. Ahmed El-Shafei’s research group invented a new “sensitizer,” or dye, that harvests more ambient and solar light than any dyes currently on the market for use in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs).

“A third-party solar energy company compared our new dye, NCSU-10, against the state-of-the-art dye on the market. Our dye had 14 percent more power density,” says El-Shafei, an assistant professor in the Textile Engineering, Chemistry and Science department. “In other words, NCSU-10 allows us to harvest more energy from the same amount of light.”

[ElNono]

Not trying to steal Nono's thunder, but these might be interesting as well:

No thunder stolen. It's good to keep up with this stuff. IMO, anyways.

[boutons_deux]

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

... govt shouldn't be involved in pure research