[LINK] Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Cells

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Bright sparks scoop top award for cutting cost of solar power

Jan 19, 2014. By Peter Hannam Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald
<http://www.watoday.com.au/environment/climate-change/bright-sparks-scoop-
top-award-for-cutting-cost-of-solar-power-20140119-31346.html>


Australia's world-leading efforts to drive down the cost of solar energy 
have been recognised with an Australia-based researcher taking out the 
engineering equivalent of the Oscars.

Professor Stuart Wenham and his team at the University of NSW won this 
year's A. F. Harvey Engineering Research Prize, from the Institution of 
Engineering and Technology, and plan to plough the $560,000 award – one of 
the world's richest – back into their work. 

"The prizemoney is going to be very valuable for us," Professor Wenham 
said. "We're going to use that to expand one of the research areas that 
actually contributed to winning us the prize."

As Fairfax Media reported in May, Professor Wenham's team discovered 
methods to control hydrogen atoms to correct deficiencies in silicon, the 
most costly material in solar photovoltaic (PV) cells.

<http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/breakthrough-in-solar-
efficiency-by-unsw-team-ahead-of-its-time-20130505-2j117.html?
rand=1390161094047>

As a result of the new hydrogenation process, lower-quality low-cost 
silicon can achieve the same performance as typical commercial cells using 
the expensive high-purity silicon, which now convert about 17-20 per cent 
of the sun’s energy into electricity."

Cell performance can be raised "to make it just as good as if they'd used 
very expensive material", he said.

Industry partners

Six solar PV companies have signed up as industry partners with UNSW, 
including China Sunergy last week, and that number is likely to double, 
Professor Wenham said.

About 1.6 million Australian homes have rooftop PV, with installations 
roughly doubling over the past two years. 

During last week's heatwave, solar PV contributed as much as 10 per cent of 
SA's power needs and 3 per cent of Victoria's, helping to ease the strain 
on supplies.

UNSW's labs set the world record for PV cells in 2008, achieving 25 per 
cent efficiency. 

Martin Green, director of the university's Centre for Advanced 
Photovoltaics, said the school's researchers were working to get 30 per 
cent efficiency by stacking cells made from materials that could use a 
wider range of the solar spectrum.

"Silicon cells convert red sunlight very efficiently but the blue and green 
sunlight less efficiently," Professor Green said. 

"We think ultimately something like 40 per cent might be achievable by this 
stacking approach," he said, adding that such performance "might come 
within the decade".

"The industry will eventually get there," Professor Green said. "We're just 
trying to accelerate the time it would otherwise have taken."

Even if it takes a decade or more for large-scale production of cells with 
30 per cent or higher efficiency, PV in Australia is already close to or at 
"grid parity" with retail prices of electricity, Professor Wenham said.

During last week's heatwave over south-eastern states, some consumers were 
paying up to 50 cents per kilowatt-hour, he said. "PV can generate 
electricity at basically half that."

UNSW, which claims to have been the first in the world to offer 
undergraduate degrees in PV, now has more than 600 students enrolled in 
under and postgraduate courses.

--

Cheers,
Stephen


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