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Old 02-06-2019, 01:10 PM   #1 (permalink)
Xist
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Clear solar panels

Search did not turn up anything here, either.

The best silicon solar cells are 25% efficient. "Meanwhile, a new [and cheaper] class of opaque solar cell materials, called perovskites, are closing in on silicon with top efficiencies of 22%."

For at least four years, a team at Michigan State University has worked on clear UV-absorbing solar panels that are .5% efficient, and they believe they can achieve 4% efficiency.

I am waiting to be impressed.

However, this could power self-darkening windows, saving utilities.

The same team developed infrared-absorbing panels that are 5% efficient and they think they can achieve 20%.

Five percent is not great and windows are generally a terrible angle for absorbing solar energy. Still, the sheer amount of window glass gives vast opportunities.

Another team developed panes of glass with quantum dots embedded in them. "[Q]uantum dots, which are tiny semiconductor particles, absorb light at UV and infrared frequencies and re-emit it at the wavelengths that traditional solar cells capture. The re-emitted light is concentrated and shunted sideways, through the glass, to solar cell strips embedded in the window frame." They state this is 3.1% efficient.

Next Energy Technologies in Santa Barbara, California, developed self-darkening windows that are 7% efficient as solar cells.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018...ww.google.com/

Have a great day!

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