QuantaSol unveils 28.3% efficient single-junction solar cell World record made public at UK’s Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition
QuantaSol Ltd, a new independent designer and manufacturer of strain-balanced quantum-well solar cells, has developed what it believes to be the most efficient single junction solar cell ever manufactured. Developed in just two years, QuantaSol's single-junction device has been independently tested by Fraunhofer ISE as achieving 28.3% efficiency at greater than 500 suns.
QuantaSol was established in June 2007 as a spin-out of Imperial College London to commercialise the University’s solar cell IP and offer devices to concentrator Photovoltaic (PV) systems developers. Imperial will be featuring a QuantaSol device as part of its presence at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition in London this week.
“Our technology is the industry’s best kept secret. This is the first time that anyone has successfully combined high efficiency with ease of manufacture, historically a bug-bear of the solar cell industry,” said Kevin Arthur, QuantaSol’s CEO. “We’re now gearing up to provide multi-junction cells of even higher efficiencies as early as Q1 2010.”
QuantaSol’s approach combines several nanostructures, of two or more different alloys, in order to obtain synthetic crystals that overcome the problems associated with current solar cell designs. It also greatly enhances the photovoltaic conversion efficiency.
The company, which has a development laboratory in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, completed a £2m second funding round last week. It will now concentrate on cutting the cost of ownership of solar energy by moving to multi-junction devices.
For further information on Quantasol: http://www.quantasol.com/
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
29/06/09: Post Doctoral & PhD Scholarships positions available *CLOSING SOON*
29/06/09: Post Doctoral & PhD Scholarships positions available *CLOSING SOON*
Two Arnold F Graves Post Doctoral Fellowships and two PhD Scholarships available within the Solar Energy Group in DEL.
Closing date for Post Doctoral positions: 29th June
For further information see Opportunities
29/06/09: Dublin Energy Lab seminar series continues on July 7th @ 3pm
The Dublin Energy Lab seminar series continues on July 7th at 3pm in Meeting Room 1 in the Focas Institute with Group 2 presenting
- Kevin O'Farrell
- Caitriona Walsh
- Timothy O'Leary
- Keith Sunderland
Derek Kearney
- Lacour Ayompe
Look forward to seeing you all there!
Friday, June 26, 2009
26/06/09: Round-the-world Solar Powered Plane!
Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard has unveiled a prototype of the solar-powered plane he hopes eventually to fly around the world.
The initial version, spanning 61m but weighing just 1,500kg, will undergo trials to prove it can fly at night.
Dr Piccard, who made history in 1999 by circling the globe non-stop in a balloon, says he wants to demonstrate the potential of renewable energies.
He hopes to fly a later version of the plane across the Atlantic in 2012.
The flight would be a risky endeavour. Only now is solar and battery technology becoming mature enough to sustain flight through the night - and then only in unmanned planes.
But Dr Piccard's Solar Impulse team has invested tremendous energy - and no little money - in trying to find what they believe is a breakthrough design.
"I love this type of vision where you set the goal and then you try to find a way to reach it, because this is challenging," he told BBC News.
For more information see
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
03/06/09: 2 Post Doctoral Fellowships & 2 PhD Scholarships available *APPLY NOW*
Two Arnold F Graves Post Doctoral Fellowships and two PhD Scholarships available within the Solar Energy Group in DEL.
Closing date for Post Doctoral positions: 29th June
For further information see Opportunities
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
02/06/09: EU researchers achieve €1/Wp and module efficiencies of 16.4%
European photovoltaic research project achieves new world record in efficiency
Researchers of the European funded project CrystalClear have successfully developed innovative technologies for silicon solar modules to be manufactured at €1 per watt-peak of power. Moreover they have achieved world-record efficiencies for modules with multicrystalline silicon solar cells. Their full-size solar modules have achieved a premium aperture area conversion efficiency of 16.0 to 16.4%.
The previous world-record was held by Sandia National Laboratory (USA), at 15.5% aperture-area efficiency. This means that the main project target of reducing the costs of PV modules by more than 50% (if produced in large volumes) has been achieved.
The low-cost technologies developed in the consortium are all characterised by the use of very thin silicon wafers, advanced solar cell designs and processing, innovative module assembly, and high efficiencies. An important common feature is the very effective reduction of conversion losses that normally occur at the surfaces of the cells.
The world record was achieved using industrial-scale equipment for interconnection and encapsulation of rear-contact cells. The new module design and manufacturing process is based on interconnection of the cells using conductive adhesives and a patterned conductive foil. The 16.0% efficient module was built with 36 cells of 120 micron thickness only (the 16.4% module had 160 micron cells), much thinner than the 180-200 micron thickness used by industry. All modules were made without any cell breakage, underlining the potential for cost reduction and the feasibility for use in production
For more info see http://ec.europa.eu/research/index.cfm?pg=newsalert&lg=en&year=2009&na=na-290509
02/06/09: Guest lecture today by Assistant Professor Soteris Kalogirou entitled ‘A Solar Energy Future’
Assistant Professor Soteris Kalogirou will give a guest lecture today on ‘A Solar Energy Future’ by Dr. at 2pm in Room 227 in
Assist. Professor Kalogirou lectures in Mechanical Engineering at the Higher Technical Institute in
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