Solar Panels Costing 25% Less

A startup company from Canada, Day4 Energy, has introduced new solar panel technology which will increase energy efficiency while decreasing costs by 25 percent. President of Day4 Energy, George Rubin, has estimated that the cost per watt of solar power from his products would be about $3 compared to $4 for conventional panels. After months of research and experimentation, Day4 has developed a new solar panel that has evolved in design and performance. The company has redesigned the solar-cell structure and developed a new electrode that allows the panels to absorb more light and operate at a higher voltage, which increases the efficiency from an industry standard of 14 percent to 17 percent. In the end, these solar panels will generate more power than conventional panels do.

In conventional solar panels, the silicon that converts light into electricity is covered with a network of silver lines that feed into thicker wires called bus bars. Day4 replaced the bus bars with rows of fine copper wires coated with an alloy material, and in turn, created a new electrode. While covering up less silicon than the bus bars, it leaves more area for absorbing light. Less silicon was used to create this new electrode, which allows more light to pass through the surface to be converted into electricity. Although these new panels won’t be available for another 18 months, they are already in production.

www.day4energy.com

Ecolect member in the LimeLight

We’re happy to announce a new monthly series that looks at the outstanding work produced within the Ecolect community. This month brings us Teresita Cochran from SMIT. You may already be familiar with their work if you’ve visited the recent MoMA exhibition titled “Design and the Elastic Mind”. Read more about that along with an inside look of an entrepreneur hot on the trail of renewable energy.

Read the interview.

Benchmarking blackness

You might ask yourself, why are scientists working to create a material that absorbs up to 99.9 percent of visible light? Pulickel Ajayan, who’s working with the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York will tell you that this new material has the potential to be used in solar energy conservation. It has only been tested on visible light but there’s a chance is can be used for infrared detection, astronomical observation. It could also function to block infrared and ultraviolet light as well as radiation. Click here for more information.