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A comment on Japanese company develops a solar cell with record-breaking efficiency. Parent comment

Re:Japanese company develops a solar cell with record-breaki... by smdz on Thursday March 23, 2017 @10:17AM (#13939921)
No - because 2.7% (or 0.7 efficiency difference) increase is not insignificant when you scale up. As an analogy, think of what 0.7% tax saving would mean to you annually.

In reality solar-cells and batteries are not at all cheap to install and maintain. We can scale up the solar cells and collect more energy. However, that needs more surface area to be covered with these panels. We still need better ways to store the energy efficiently.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Japanese company develops a solar cell with record-breaki... by TillE on Thursday March 23, 2017 @07:51PM (#13945424)
Storing huge amounts of energy is easy: use pumps to add potential energy to water.

This isn't ultra efficient, but it's cheap and probably good enough. We have lots of experience with hydroelectric power.

[ Parent | on HN ]