Home: Renewable Energy News: Monday 19 January, 2009

Renewable Energy News

MONDAY 19 JANUARY, 2009 |

Australian Solar Energy Institute Launched

Martin Ferguson - Resources and Energy Minister

Martin Ferguson AM MP, Minister for Resources and Energy, launched the Australian Solar Institute on Friday.

The Solar Institute, based in Newcastle New South Wales, is a $100 million project that will go some way to fulfilling the Government's election promise of fast tracking solar energy initiatives in Australia.

The Institute will allow for greater collaboration between Australian and international researchers in the solar energy sector in addition to providing financial support for research and development of solar thermal and solar photovoltaic technologies throughout Australia.

The Australian Government is providing an initial $15 million to establish three foundation projects.

$5 million will be invested to support the development of a crystalline silicon pilot production line at the University of New South Wales. A further $5 million will go to establishing a high tech solar thermal tower at the CSIRO in Newcastle and $5 million will be provided to assist in the creation of a solar research facility at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Australia has a solid history in the area of solar energy innovation, but much of the development went offshore during the Howard years when local researchers and entrepreneurs were unable to gain the funding and support needed. Minister Ferguson believes that Australian Solar Institute will again put Australia at the forefront of this critically important renewable energy technology.

The Australian Solar Institute will build on other recent Government initiatives designed to tackle global warming and encouraging the local renewable energy industry, including the highly controversial Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, the upcoming switch to the Solar Credits program to replace the current solar energy rebates scheme for home owners and the Renewable Energy Target.

Solar Cell Efficiency Record Broken - Again

Solar Cell Efficiency

Dwindling oil reserves, global warming and an interest in living a greener lifestyle have been generating a wave of interest and support in renewable energy in recent years and consequently a slew of solar energy innovations have been hitting the headlines. One of the holy grails of solar cell production is efficiency and records relating to the amount of sunlight converted into energy by a cell have tumbled every couple of months.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Germany recently announced the achievement of a record efficiency of 41.1% for the conversion of sunlight into electricity. Currently, solar panels generally available on the market have an efficiency of between 12 and 18 percent. The result was achieved with a sunlight concentration factor of 454 and even at a higher sunlight concentration of 880, an efficiency of 40.4% was measured.

The new solar cells developed by the Fraunhofer team are comprised of thin layers of gallium indium phosphide, gallium indium arsenide on a germanium substrate..

In contrast to conventional solar cells, the semiconductors in these cells do not have the same distance between the atoms in a crystalline structure which has made it difficult to grow the multiple semiconductor layers with a high crystal quality in conventional technology.

The high efficiency multi-junction solar cells will be used in concentrating photovoltaic systems for solar farms in countries with good levels of direct solar radiation.

According to Dr. Andreas Bett, Department Head at Fraunhofer ISE, the high efficiencies of the new solar cells are the most effective way to reduce the electricity generation costs for concentrating PV systems and with the new efficiency results, the concentrated solar energy sector has taken a big step towards reaching the goal of being cost competitive with conventional methods of electricity generation.