Whorled View

Every now and then some genius comes up with a good idea that changes everything. A Houston company called “global warming solutions” claims to have just done that.

This effectively makes solar 1/3 it’s current cost - which makes Solar PV competitive with grid, WITHOUT SUBSIDIES!

See, one of the main problems with Solar PV (those panels you can put on your roof to generate electricity) is that they usually only covert about 13% of the sun’s energy into usable energy. Solar thermal however, which is only feasible in a power plant setting, can convert over 50% into usable energy. Until now the idea to improve PV (Photo-Voltaic) efficiencies involved modifying the solar cell so that it could use a larger spectrum of the light. These involved using multiple junction cells (layers on top of layers), with each junction capturing a different range of the light spectrum. This, of course adds siginificant cost to the PV solar cells, which are already much more expensive than was predicted 10 years ago for today. In fact, one of the reasons AstroPower (the company I worked for) went belly up was because they couldn’t get the costs down (there were other more important reasons, but that’s H2O under the bridge). What GWS did was to modify the incoming sun’s rays instead of modifying the solar cell. Brilliant idea really. It’s surprisingly simple too. They have the sunlight pass through this liquid, and liquid can be made to change a light’s wavelength. They claim that it could improve efficiencies by 250%! That would make a 13% efficient cell 13*(1+2.5)= 42.5% efficient. More importantly, it should take an 18% efficient cell (like some of the more expensive sharp solar cells) and make them 18% * (1+2.5) = 63% efficient! Believe me when I say that is truly mind-boggling. In fact, it’s way too mind-boggling. Those are best case numbers - based on their best case estimates. My guess is that they’re never get efficiencies better than 50% with Silicon solar cells - and even that has to be proven in a real world setting. However, assuming that this is true then suddenly Solar PV is competitive - even beyond competitive in some ways with Solar Thermal for Power Plants. It even puts distributed electricity (domestic roof panels) attractive for the masses instead of the rich. In short, this effectively makes solar 1/3 it’s current cost - which makes Solar PV competitive with grid, WITHOUT SUBSIDIES! I won’t do the math for you, but believe me … with current solar pv subsidies (50% in many states), it will make you money the day you install it (assuming a decent 7 year loan).

Call me a cynic if you must, but come on …

I’ll believe it when I see it. Call me a cynic if you must, but come on … some things are just too good to be true. Or are they? One thing is for sure … it will never happen unless they cut the cost of PV grade silicon by 75%. That’s supposed to happen within the next couple years based on some new technologies… again: I’ll believe it when I see it. I also wonder if when they said 250% more efficient (1 + 2.5 more = 3.5x current efficiency), what they meant was 250% of it’s current efficiency meaning it’s only 150% more efficient (1 + 1.5 more = 2.5x current efficiency). There’s a huge difference there. Still if it’s only 150% more efficient, that’s still incredibly significant, as it puts Solar PV in a whole new market.