Apr

14

Carbon May Be In Your Solar Cell

April 14, 2010 | 5 Comments

Carbon is cheap, abundant, and in the form of the nanoparticles graphene, capable of absorbing a wide range of light frequencies. Graphene is essentially the same stuff as a pencil’s graphite, except graphene is formed to a single sheet of carbon, just one atom thick. Graphene shows promise as an effective, cheap-to-produce, and less toxic […]

Jun

10

Much Better Solar Photovoltaics On the Way

June 10, 2009 | 7 Comments

Startup Enphase Energy of Petaluma, CA, is now making its first micro-inverters.  The small inverters can be bolted to the racking under each of an installation’s solar panel to convert DC power into AC for each panel individually. The company claims that the devices will increase a PV system’s efficiency by 5 to 25 percent […]

Apr

15

Space Based Solar Power Gets the First OK!

April 15, 2009 | 9 Comments

Pacific Gas and Electric the southern California utility asked California Public Utilities Commission last Friday for permission to buy 200 megawatts of electricity from Solaren’s orbiting power plant when and if it’s built, projected for 2016, a mere 7 years out. PG&E spokesman Jonathan Marshall said, “We’re convinced it’s a very serious possibility that they […]

Feb

19

Progress in the Solar Cell Two Step Method

February 19, 2009 | 11 Comments

Robert DiMatteo, the CEO of a startup based in Boston named MTPV has a new approach to converting heat into electricity using solar cells could make a technology called thermal photovoltaics more practical. Thermal photovoltaics are solar cells that convert the light that radiates from a hot surface into electricity. The first applications will be […]

Jan

19

A Path to a Better Solar Cells, Light Devices and Electronics

January 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Greg Scholes and Elisabetta Collini of University of Toronto´s Department of Chemistry are investigating how light initiates physical processes at the molecular level and how humans might take better advantage of that fact by looking specifically at conjugated polymers that are believed to be one of the most promising candidates for building efficient organic solar […]

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