Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Solar PV and LED symmetry - PV, LED, refrigeration and +28% PV cell

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
You will note Lab results are of course different from factory produced solar cells. But of course it all starts in the Lab and then scaling up is the next challenge. So this is the bleeding edge. The economics is also another interesting part of the story you'll see in this talk. I'm suspect of his economic analysis as most professors are often all theory and no practical experience, but that is my bias. Interesting to see what others think. Progress continues, current theories continue to fall short as is usual in scientific pursuits. And like battery chemistry it is surprising, to me, just how little we understand about the nitty gritty details. And I'm a long way from understanding how they scale these LAB discoveries into factory production. How many years will it take? 5, 10 ?

Published on Feb 15, 2017

A new scientific principle has produced record-breaking solar cells following UC Berkeley Professor Eli Yablonovich’s mantra, “A great solar cell has to be a great LED.” These solar cells have smashed all efficiency records and are in commercial production. Nonetheless, the overhang of greater than 60 gigawatts/year of subsidized, outdated, Chinese-silicon solar panel factories is blocking the scaling of the superior technology.

In the interim, the solar/LED symmetry will revolutionize thermophotovoltaics, the creation of electricity directly from heat, and enable electroluminescent refrigeration, a refrigerator in which light is the working fluid.

About the speaker:

Eli Yablonovitch is director of the NSF Center for Energy Efficient Electronics Science (E3S), a multi-university center based at the University of California, Berkeley. In his photovoltaic research, Yablonovitch introduced the 4(n squared) (“Yablonovitch Limit”) light-trapping factor that is in worldwide use for almost all commercial solar panels. His mantra that “a great solar cell also needs to be a great LED” is the basis of the world record solar cells: single-junction 28.8% efficiency, dual-junction 31.5%, quadruple-junction 38.8% efficiency, all at 1 sun. He has been elected to the NAE, the NAS, and as Foreign Member, UK Royal UK Royal Society. Among his honors are the Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society and the Isaac Newton Medal of the UK Institute of Physics.

YouTube clip.
 
You will note Lab results are of course different from factory produced solar cells. But of course it all starts in the Lab and then scaling up is the next challenge. So this is the bleeding edge. The economics is also another interesting part of the story you'll see in this talk. I'm suspect of his economic analysis as most professors are often all theory and no practical experience, but that is my bias. Interesting to see what others think. Progress continues, current theories continue to fall short as is usual in scientific pursuits. And like battery chemistry it is surprising, to me, just how little we understand about the nitty gritty details. And I'm a long way from understanding how they scale these LAB discoveries into factory production. How many years will it take? 5, 10 ?

Published on Feb 15, 2017

A new scientific principle has produced record-breaking solar cells following UC Berkeley Professor Eli Yablonovich’s mantra, “A great solar cell has to be a great LED.” These solar cells have smashed all efficiency records and are in commercial production. Nonetheless, the overhang of greater than 60 gigawatts/year of subsidized, outdated, Chinese-silicon solar panel factories is blocking the scaling of the superior technology.

In the interim, the solar/LED symmetry will revolutionize thermophotovoltaics, the creation of electricity directly from heat, and enable electroluminescent refrigeration, a refrigerator in which light is the working fluid.

About the speaker:

Eli Yablonovitch is director of the NSF Center for Energy Efficient Electronics Science (E3S), a multi-university center based at the University of California, Berkeley. In his photovoltaic research, Yablonovitch introduced the 4(n squared) (“Yablonovitch Limit”) light-trapping factor that is in worldwide use for almost all commercial solar panels. His mantra that “a great solar cell also needs to be a great LED” is the basis of the world record solar cells: single-junction 28.8% efficiency, dual-junction 31.5%, quadruple-junction 38.8% efficiency, all at 1 sun. He has been elected to the NAE, the NAS, and as Foreign Member, UK Royal UK Royal Society. Among his honors are the Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society and the Isaac Newton Medal of the UK Institute of Physics.

YouTube clip.
WOW! Real science (and materials engineering) breakthrough here. I rarely sit thru a 1 hours youtube but this had fantastic information the whole way for me.

TL;DR - Explains why solar cells have gotten so cheap, whats next is much higher efficiency cells, and how to store PV electricity (not using batteries) to provide grid load for global energy (in theory).