Welcome to "How Efficient are Solar Cells Today?"
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This is the 9th video in our online course on Solar Energy. In it we discuss,
What are the different types of solar cells that exist today?
What are their efficiencies?
Find out in this video.
This video is part of iPolytek's online course on solar energy.
iPolytek, Professional Development Courses for Engineers.
Researchers are constantly working to improve the efficiency of solar cells. Each new wave of solar cells gives rise to a new generation of photovoltaic devices.
Today, there exist three generations.
They are
- Crystalline Silicon
- Thin film
- and Emerging PVs
Efficiencies across the three generations vary between 10% and 46%. Let's look at this in detail.
First-generation solar cells, also called conventional, traditional or wafer-based cells, are made of crystalline silicon. They fall into two groups, monocrystalline and polycrystalline, based on their crystal structure.
Monocrystalline solar panels have cells that have been cut from a silicon ingot that has been grown from a single crystal. A monocrystalline seed having a known crystal structure is brought into contact with liquid silicon at a temperature of about 1400C and is gradually pulled upwards using a Pull speed of 1 mm/sec
and rotation speed of 30 rev/min.
The liquid silicon is entrained. It cools rapidly and solidifies while adopting the crystal orientation of the precursor. This is known as the Czochralski method.
Multicrystalline or polycrystalline solar panels contain cells that are composed of several crystals oriented in different directions. Liquid silicon is placed in a graphite crucible and allowed to cool over several tens of hours.
Commercially available mono and multi-crystalline cells have efficiencies of around 18-23%.
Second-generation solar cells, or thin-film solar cells, include amorphous, cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium gallium diselenide (also known as CIGS) solar cells.
Whereas silicon wafers have a thickness of about 200 micrometres, thin-film technologies are usually less than 10 micrometres thick.
Here we see thin-film laminates being installed on a roof. And this is a CIGS solar cell on a flexible plastic backing. On the bottom, we have rigid CdTe panels mounted on a supporting structure.
In the lab, both CIGS and CdTe have achieved cell efficiencies of 18% while only a 13% efficiency has been attained with amorphous-Si.
References:
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1. Klaus Mueller [CC BY-SA 3.0 ([ Ссылка ]...)], via Wikimedia Commons
2. Microchemicals. Silicon Ingot Production: Czochralski- and Float-Zone Technique. [ Ссылка ]... (Accessed 23 July 2018)
3. Jedelbrock [CC BY-SA 4.0 ([ Ссылка ]...)], from Wikimedia Commons. [ Ссылка ].... (Accessed 25 July 2018).
4. PVeduction (3). Multi Crystalline Silicon. [ Ссылка ]... (Accessed 25 July 2018).
5. Fieldsken Ken Fields [CC BY-SA 3.0 ([ Ссылка ]...) or GFDL ([ Ссылка ]. [ Ссылка ]... (Accessed June 3 2017).
6. Material District. [ Ссылка ].... (Accessed July 16, 2018).
7. MHM55 [CC BY-SA 4.0 ([ Ссылка ]...)], from Wikimedia Commons. [ Ссылка ].... (Accessed July 16, 2018).
8. Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, [ Ссылка ].... (Accessed July 17, 2018).
9. Christopher Eames et al. — [ Ссылка ]..., CC BY 4.0, [ Ссылка ].... (Accessed July 17, 2018).
10. Saule Technologies. Saule Announces Breakthrough in Flexible, Perovskite Solar Cells Development. [ Ссылка ].... (Accessed July 17, 2018).
Music Credits
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Track 2: Bright Wish by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license ([ Ссылка ]...)
Source: [ Ссылка ]-...
Artist: [ Ссылка ]
Track 6: Guiton Sketch by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license ([ Ссылка ]...)
Source: [ Ссылка ]-...
Artist: [ Ссылка ]
#Solar #SolarCell #HowDoSolarCellsMakeElectricity #Photovoltaic
