New technology revolutionizing solar power

As governments around the world push for a green transition, companies around the world are investing heavily in research and development of innovative ways to improve renewable energy production. As companies build more powerful panels and larger turbines, traditional renewable energy projects such as solar power plants and wind farms are becoming significantly more efficient with new technology. Now, a German team believes they've discovered a new light-gathering system that can significantly increase solar energy production.

Conventional solar panels rely on silicon-based solar cells that absorb light across the visible spectrum, but their absorption is weak. These solar cells need a few micrometers thick to be able to absorb enough protons to generate electricity. Therefore, it is heavy, expensive, and difficult to place in small spaces. In contrast, thin-film solar cells made with organic dyes are only 100 nanometers thick and are cheaper and lighter. However, only a small portion of the solar spectrum can be absorbed. Scientists have been searching for solutions for years, aiming to increase the efficiency of solar panels while keeping weight and cost down.

Now, scientists at the University of Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany believe they may have discovered the structure needed to significantly enhance solar power generation. The researchers recently published a study in Chem magazine demonstrating the use of URPB systems. URPB systems are an acronym for ultraviolet, red, purple, and blue, and are based on plant and bacterial photosynthetic antennas that can efficiently capture sunlight. The URPB model uses four different dyes stacked in a precise configuration to efficiently capture light across ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths.

During the testing phase, the research team was able to convert 38 percent of the incident light into useful energy. Meanwhile, the four dyes alone can only convert less than 1 percent to a maximum of 3 percent. Frank Würthner, professor of chemistry at JMU, said, “Our system has a band structure similar to an inorganic semiconductor. In other words, it absorbs light panchromatically throughout the entire visible range. We also use organic dyes with a high absorption coefficient. As a result, a relatively thin layer can absorb large amounts of light energy, similar to natural light gathering systems.”

The next challenge is scaling up the process for commercial use. While using this technology to generate energy in laboratory environments has been successful, there are always major challenges when it comes to using new technology in real environments.

It's just the latest technology being tested around the world with the aim of improving solar energy production. Driven by increased financial incentives such as public funds and tax cuts, and the need to increase global renewable energy capacity to reduce fossil fuel consumption, companies around the world are investing heavily in research and development in the solar energy field. Solar power generation has advanced by leaps and bounds over the past 10 years. The efficiency of solar panels has risen from around 17% in 2012 to 22-29% today, production costs have dropped, and the price of solar panels per watt has dropped from around $5 in 2000 to less than 50 cents today.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), photovoltaics (PV) is the fastest growing energy source in the world and has grown approximately 26 times since 2010. By the end of 2022, the world's installed solar power generation capacity was 1,047 GW, and 191 GW was added in 2022 alone.

Earlier this year, Turkish researchers presented research showing the possibility of hemispherical photovoltaic cell structures thought to absorb up to 66% more light than conventional flat panels. The team is currently considering creating a prototype to test this technology, which seemed promising in computer simulations.

There is also widespread optimism about the use of perovskite solar cells (PSC) thanks to their high performance and low manufacturing costs. PSC has shown significant progress in recent years, with significant efficiency improvements over 25% now from around 3% in 2009. As a result, the US Department of Energy (DoE) and other public and private agencies around the world are investing heavily in improving PSC technology.

Until now, most PSC testing has been done in a laboratory environment. But a national US team of researchers, led by the University of North Carolina, is moving the tests outdoors. The US Department of Energy's Perovskite PV Commercialization Technology Accelerator (PACT) Center used this technology outdoors for 29 weeks and succeeded in achieving operational efficiency of over 16%. NREL chemistry researcher Laura Schellhus explained, “Real-world demonstration is an important step towards commercialization, and we expect that by providing these functions, researchers and companies can improve reliability by utilizing this data.”