Solar Cell Efficiency And Why You Won't Get Your Hands On The Most Efficient Solar Cell Out There
Solar homeowners are on a continual quest to find the greatest solar cell efficiency.
Find out which high efficiency solar cell has NASA's attention
and why YOU can't get your hands on it.
Residential solar power is on the rise. Many homeowners are on the search to find the solar cell that has the greatest solar cell efficiency.
The Quest For Solar-Cell Efficiency - Not Only A Concern For HomeOwners - It's A Concern For NASA As Well
The quest for solar cell efficiency has captured NASA's attention. Making solar cell types more efficient is largely what NASA does.
- The International Space Station and several satellites, use gallium arsenide solar cell types - the most efficienct solar cell around.
A gallium arsenide solar cell type array can expect a conversion efficiency that's close to 30-35%, and with some focusing optics, can get up to 40% efficiency.
The gallium arsenide solar cell has a denser crystalline array, and it doesn't hold on to it's electrons quite as tightly on the negative side.
- And, thus, These properties make them much more efficient at converting sunlight to electricity.
So...Why Aren't Gallium Arsenide Solar Cells Used In Residential Applications?
The gallium arsenide solar cell can't be used in residential solar power systems because it is simply too expensive for homeowners.
For a given watt-hour, the gallium areside solar cell is nearly 300x as expensive as a standard silicon solar cell type...
- Meaning the homeowner will probably never break even during the lifetime of the insulation.
Making gallium-arsenide semi-conductors is a much more technically challenging process than making silicon solar cell types, and the resulting cells are much more fragile.
The process also involves industrial quantities of arsenic, which is toxic.
- Even if manufacturers were able to make them at prices low enough for consumer adoption, they'd probably get nowhere in the marketplace.
The Cost Benefit Analysis: Why The Gallium Arsenide's Solar Cell Efficiency Doesn't Make Sense For The Homeowner.
When you put them into the cost-benefit equation: (how much will they cost to install and how long will it take for them to pay for themselves), Gallium Arsenide solar cell types are a disaster.
- They'd take an average home owner over a century and a half to pay for themselves at 11 cents per kilowatt-hour.
However, regardless of the obvious drawbacks of Gallium Arsenide, NASA is interested in the gallium arsenide crystal because it makes economic sense for them.
The majority of the cost of putting things into orbit comes from putting them into orbit...
- For NASA, the three hundred fold increase in the cost per watt is worth it because gallium arsenide crystal can generate a little over twice the electricity.
But Homeowners Have Nothing To Worry About - Attempts To Improve The Efficiency Of Silicon Solar Cell Types Are Also Underway.
These include doping the silicon cells to respond to specific wavelengths of light
And using a prismatic filter to split the light and shine the exact wavelength (color) of light to that particular spot of the solar cell.
This technique is still in development, but promises to be an incremental (2-3%) increase in the efficiency of the solar cell type for a minor fraction of the cost to implement.
Additional Attempts To Acheive Better Solar Cell Efficiency Are Underway
Solar manufacturers are also developing techniques that include using nanoscale grooves to increase the surface area that collects photons.
- The chief advantage of improving efficiency is power density.
- A given solar array with higher efficiency solar cell types can be smaller and take up less space; it'll weigh less on the roof of your house
Here's to finding a way to bring more solar power into your family!
P.S. Here's a few more tips to help your solar power projects go smoothly...
6 Tips To Get The Biggest Bang For Your Solar-Electric Residential Buck |
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Silicon Solar Cells - 5 Things You Need To Know About Getting Them To Perform Their Best |
