UNSW takes lead in race for non-toxic, thin-film solar cells
newsroom.unsw.edu.auFrom the article: "NREL, the USA’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, confirmed this world leading 7.6% efficiency in a 1cm2 area CZTS cell this month."
That's deceptive. It's "world leading" for CZTS technology, not for solar cells in general. Commercial solar panels today are delivering about 20% efficiency, and there are research technologies which have demonstrated 44%.[1]
Also, somebody else is claiming 12% for CZTS cells in a lab.[2]
Why are materials science articles from academic PR outlets so fake? We see this all the time with articles on batteries and surface chemistry, called "nanotechnology" for PR purposes. It's embarrassing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CZTS
It's looking like the next decade is going to be absolutely insane for solar power, and it's no wonder that everyone wants a piece of that.
I am a bit cautious about that. While the researcher do insane amounts of high quality and ill compensated work, clean energy and battery storage feel as predictable as "our incredible journey" or "cured cancer/obesity in mice/petri dish" posts.
1st - we have "Researches made a break trough" 2nd - the new technology is below current / at par 3rd - more works needs to be done to get to acceptable parameter and market 4th - years have passed - there is no hint of commercialization
Meanwhile exiting tech has gotten couple of incremental improvements and economy of scale and makes the inroads of newcomers next to impossible.
If the next decade is going to be insane it will be on the shoulders of existing tech. The nature of the beast.
Is the constraint still energy storage?
Not really a constraint anymore. With solar as low as $20/MW ($0.02/kwh), battery storage isn't so exorbitant when complementing solar (Tesla has batteries under $190/kwh, and that's before the Gigafactory is fully ramped) insert To The Moon ASCII here.
Texas currently has the lowest price per watt in the entire country [1] (and that's just solar, they have so much wind power they can't get out of the state due to transmission lines being under construction, some utilities are giving wind power away for free during nighttime hours), the cost of solar continues to plummet [2], and India is going all out to provide solar to homes (its cheaper than coal based on their economics). [3]
New York is about to start a program to give solar generation systems away for free to middle class families [4].
Nuclear was once thought of as an energy source "too cheap to meter" [5]; solar is going to deliver on that.
[1] http://cleantechnica.com/2016/04/30/texas-solar-prices-curre...
[2] http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/i-was-wrong-abou...
[3] http://www.sciencealert.com/india-says-the-cost-of-solar-pow...
[4] http://greenenergychronicles.com/index.php/2015/05/26/new-yo...
My electric bill just isn't a big enough factor in my budget to think seriously about giving up the proven reliability and availability of utility power. Even if electricity were free, it's a big and costly problem when it's not available.
So I have no interest in a personal household solar system and bank of batteries in the basement. And for the Alternative Energy Solar Project prediction that "it could save individual families up to $2,400" seems a stretch -- my annual utility electric costs aren't anywhere near that in a middle-class home.
You don't give up utility power, but that's besides the point. Its already happening one roof at a time (per my citations), and will continue to accelerate as solar costs continue to decline.
Toomuchtodo did too much better than I could answer! I will add that I think a big challenge would have been transmission, but that was in the model of more expensive solar panels in remote sunny areas. If we can really plaster the world with non-toxic, thin films that produce some energy, that stops being as much of a barrier.
You are too kind :) My day job is DevOps/infrastructure, but I'd love to move into the renewables space. Its our generation's moon shot.
If you're at SolarCity, Tesla, or any other company that is working on engineering dispatchable supply or demand from distributed resources, get in touch please!
Somewhat ironically, "lead" is highly toxic. I was very confused for moment. Thanks English!