AUSTRALIAN SCIENTISTS have set a new record in increasing the efficiency of solar panels, which they hope could eventually lead to cheaper sources of renewable energy.
..the researchers were able to convert more than 40 per cent of sunlight hitting the panels into electricity.
“This is the highest efficiency ever reported for sunlight conversion into electricity…We used commercial solar cells, but in a new way, so these efficiency improvements are readily accessible to the solar industry,”…
While traditional methods use a single solar cell, which limits the conversion of sunlight to electricity to about 33 per cent, the newer technology splits the sunlight across four different cells, each optimised for the fraction of the sunlight they receive, which boosts the efficiency level, Green said.
The four-way solar cells can be used at the centre of a field of mirrors which are arranged to concentrate the Sun’s rays. …
Read all about it HERE.
Hat tip: Astrostevo
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I wonder if here is some way to do that in a single panel -split the light into different spectrums then channel it to specific layers sensitive to those frequencies. Then it could be used on rooftop solar. I thought I read somewhere last year something like that was being researched.