The Future Of... Solar Cells

Background music

>> Sumi Das: Solar panels installed on rooftops have become a common site yet while they're well-positioned to utilize the sun's rays, energy still goes wasted but in the future, solar cells may take on different forms and be far more efficient.

Background music Every second the sun releases 5 million tons of energy. Of course, most of it goes untapped, but researchers around the world are striving to capture more of that precious power.

>> What's going on here?

>> Sumi Das: At Stanford University engineer, Nick Melosh, leads a research group that's developed a new solar conversion process called photon-enhanced thermionic emission or PETE. The researchers use this vacuum chamber to test materials for the process.

Background music Traditional photovoltaic cells, which can't convert heat directly from sunlight, have an efficiency rate of about 20%, but by using the sun's light and heat PETE could boost that significantly, up to 30%.

>> Nick Melosh: It really uses the energy coming from the sun twice so the idea is that the sun comes in, you absorb it and then you use that just like a photovoltaic would until you get thermal electricity out directly, but all the waste heat that is generated now goes to a thermal conversion system where it tries to convert some of that energy again.

>> Sumi Das: Melosh calls it a two for one.

>> Nick Melosh: We think that with a reasonable cost of a few thousand dollars per wafer and then integrating it with existing systems you could get on line with the same cost for natural gas electrical production.

>> Sumi Das: Since PETE works best at extremely high temperatures, it's unlikely they'll pop up on roofs but rather for large-scale power generation such as solar farms in the desert. Melosh hopes that in a couple of years the research will make it out of the lab and into the sun. Other scientists are looking to windows to help get off the grid. inaudible-based Oxford PV has developed a way to print organic solar cells right onto glass that could be used in residential or commercial construction. No silicon here instead a dye sensitive cell mimics photosynthesis to generate electricity. It's one way to incorporate solar energy into buildings without the hassle of adding solar panels and at the University of South Florida, researchers are moving beyond solar installations to spray cans. They've developed a coating that can be sprayed onto surfaces to create solar panels.

Background music The future of solar cells powering the way to greener energy. For Smart Planet, I'm Sumi Das.

==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====