Solar Cell Efficiency Boosted As Much As 50% With New Optical Element - Polidicks

Solar Cell Efficiency Boosted As Much As 50% With New Optical Element

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[QUOTE=JgcxCub;45190354]In the context of solar panels, any improvement for low cost is great, since efficiency is already so low and improvement due to subverting theoretical limitations rather than fine-tuning characteristics is far more progressive.[/QUOTE] I know that solar panels are massively inefficient, I was commenting on how in general, saying that a value (that itself is a percentage) increased by X% is an ambiguous statement.

[QUOTE=Falcqn;45191074]I know that solar panels are massively inefficient, I was commenting on how in general, saying that a value (that itself is a percentage) increased by X% is an ambiguous statement.[/QUOTE] No it's not. It means the value increased by x% of the original value. 100 increased by 50% is 150. There's no ambiguity.

Whatever, I was gonna post [URL="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/percentage_points.png"]this image[/URL] as the efficiency itself is a percentage. It just irks me slightly when percentages are just thrown around without any figures (or even a referenced paper) to back them up

[QUOTE=ewitwins;45184219]I'm sure they'll find a way to retrofit older panels, there's too good of a market there for that not to.[/QUOTE] That's impossible. Current panels are optimised for one wavelength across the whole surface, while to use this system you need to have a panel that has repeating gradients of optimal frequency. It would likely decrease yield a bit due to parts of the cell getting more intensity in their sweet-spot than they can effectively use.

Wtf is wrong with you people. Increasing efficiency by [U]up to[/U] 50%. Current [U]limit[/U] of efficiency of the compared wavelength is 33.5, so most of the time it will perform under that as well. And it's a 50% efficiency gain on that. That would bring the [U]limit[/U] to 50.25% efficiency. But there's no way that it would run that high, because of the highly debatable "up to" 50% gain, on top of merely a limit.

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