The best solar cells have something like 30% efficiency at the moment. Even if he boosted it by 1% it would be impressive.
At the moment I've got no idea what he _actually_ did. Obviously, parts of this story are complete BS (e.g. 500 times). Is there something genuinely worthwhile? I haven't read a sufficiently detailed article to figure it out.
Re:12-Year-Old May Hold Key to Solar Energy
by PieSquared on Friday September 19, 2008 @08:22PM
(#309607)
Maybe the efficiency only counts the visible radiation? So that the fact that it uses ultraviolent screws up the 7-15% (that is, if you include UV light, its much lower?) That'd be my guess...
Although it is rather low on facts and high on hype.
Yes, I think you're right.
From the article: Most solar cells in use today are either photovoltaic, meaning they harness only visible light, or thermal.
Also: they're engineered to stand freely in three dimensions
So you have panels that catch both visible and UV light, and can do it in three dimensions.
Re:12-Year-Old May Hold Key to Solar Energy
by hugh on Saturday September 20, 2008 @02:08AM
(#309766)
The amount of energy coming through in the UV portion of the spectrum is quite small:
http://www.sunwindsolar.com/a_images/solar_insolation-b.jpg
Everything to the left of the "visible light" portion.
Re:12-Year-Old May Hold Key to Solar Energy
by PieSquared on Saturday September 20, 2008 @08:13AM
(#309873)
Huh. In that case, there's no way that '500 times' can have any bearing towards reality whatsoever. :)
So he's getting what, upwards of 3500% efficiency? Even accounting for the extra energy of using ultraviolet wavelengths, this sounds a lot like bad math.
Now if he boosted the efficiency to say, three times what we get now? That'd be amazing all on its own.