Researchers from the Ben-Gurion University (BGU) of the Negev Solar Energy Research Center are continuing with Israel’s tradition of developing alternative energies, specifically in the field of solar energy. They did so by finding new ways to use more than just the 30% of the sun’s energy absorbed by traditional photovoltaic tech.
The U.S. Department of Energy explains that in photovoltaic (PV) technology PV materials and devices convert sunlight into electrical energy. A single PV device is known as a cell. An individual PV cell is usually small, typically producing about 1 or 2 watts of power. These cells are made of different semiconductor materials and are often less than the thickness of four human hairs. In order to withstand the outdoors for many years, cells are sandwiched between protective materials in a combination of glass and/or plastics.
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And the scientists from BGU add that photovoltaic technology is indispensable for our ability to mitigate climate change. Nonetheless, more than 70% of the energy made available to us by the sun is wasted in conventional photovoltaic cells. There is little hope for sustainable technological advancement without addressing this issue. But the BGU researchers may have found a way to answer this question by balancing the photon and energy rates of the photovoltaic effect.
Israel Startup Nation leads the world in solar power development so the BGU breakthrough comes as little surprise. This makes sense since Israel has few if any natural resources, but plenty of sun. For example, Apollo Power, an Israeli firm that deals with alternative energies, launched “Apollo Carmel.” The company says that this plant, located in Carmel Israel, is the first automatic factory of its kind in the world to produce flexible solar panels.
And in February, Jewish Business News reported on how Enlight Renewable Energy, an Israeli alternative energy firm, completed its long planned IPO on the NASDAQ. The company offered 14 million shares opening at $17.90 per share and raised $252 million, almost 18% below its expected raise of $293 million. But the company now ended with a market cap of just over $2 billion.
As for BGU’s work with photovoltaic technology, the operational temperature is a critical factor in a solar cell’s ability to convert sunlight to free energy. Accordingly, much research has been directed toward understanding the temperature effects in the efficiency of photovoltaic solar cells. Surprisingly, however, little is known about what this temperature would end up being.
Their new approach theorizes a fluctuation in temperature in response to the heat produced from light absorbance and the connection to a fixed temperature environment, whereas present analyses are based on the premise that the cell temperature would remain fixed regardless of its operational conditions.
This was all published in a paper entitled “Effect of maintaining a fixed ambient temperature on the evaluation of photovoltaic device performance,” in Phys. Rev. Appl. last week,
“This article’s solid theoretical grasp is a prerequisite for significant technological advancement. Therefore, illuminating the hidden aspects of the photovoltaic effect contributes to realizing disruptive concepts, such as thermoradiative and thermophotonic cells,” says lead author Dr. Avi Niv.
Thermoradiative and thermophotonic cells are advanced conceptions of photovoltaic energy conversion that enable industrial processes’ waste heat recovery (thermoradiative) or are more efficient in converting the sun’s radiative energy flux to electricity (thermophotonic).
