The efficiency of a solar cell is determined as the fraction of incident power which is converted to electricity and is defined as:
The input power for efficiency calculations is 1 kW/m2 or 100 mW/cm2. Thus the input power for a 100 × 100 mm2 cell is 10 W and for a 156 × 156 mm2 cell is 24.3 W
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The conversion efficiency of a photovoltaic (PV) cell, or solar cell, is the percentage of the solar energy shining on a PV device that is converted into usable electricity. Improving this conversion efficiency is a key goal of research and helps make PV technologies cost-competitive with conventional sources of energy.
Not all of the sunlight that reaches a PV cell is converted into electricity. In fact, most of it is lost. Multiple factors in solar cell design play roles in limiting a cell''s ability to convert the sunlight it receives. Designing with these factors in mind is how higher efficiencies can be achieved.
Researchers measure the performance of a PV device to predict the power the cell will produce. Electrical power is the product of current and voltage. Current-voltage relationships measure the electrical characteristics of PV devices. If a certain "load" resistance is connected to the two terminals of a cell or module, the current and voltage being produced will adjust according to Ohm''s law (the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the potential difference across the two points). Efficiencies are obtained by exposing the cell to a constant, standard level of light while maintaining a constant cell temperature, and measuring the current and voltage that are produced for different load resistances.
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The research group led by Professor Martin Green has published Version 64 of the solar cell efficiency tables. There are 19 new results reported in the new version.
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The international research group led by Professor Martin Green from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia has published Version 64 of the "solar cell efficiency tables" in Progress in Photovoltaics.
The scientists said they have added 19 new results to the new tables since December.
Strong progress was reported across the whole range of solar cell technologies including silicon, chalcogenide, organic and perovskite.
A major new result is the 27.3%-efficient n-type silicon heterojunction interdigitated-back-contact (HBC) solar cell unveiled by Chinese manufacturer Longi in late May. “The cell, establishing a new outright record for silicon, has both polarity contacts on the rear surface restricting loss by the absence of contacts on the front illuminated surface,” the paper reads. “An all-laser patterning process was used for the more complex rear surface patterning required for such devices.”
Another result is the 34.2% power conversion efficiency that Longi achieved for a perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell in April with an updated value of 34.6% obtained in May held in reserve and reported at June''s Shanghai New Energy Conference (SNEC).
The list also includes a 25.6%-efficient large-area n-type TOPCon cell fabricated by JA Solar, a 26.8%-efficient large-area n-type silicon cell fabricated by Longi, and the 24.9% efficiency that Singapore-based Maxeon reached for its IBC solar module.
Furthermore, the tables now include the 22.6% efficiency that US-based First Solar achieved for a 0.45 cm2 cadmium-telluride (CdTe) cell, as well as several other thin-film solar cells based on kesterite (CZTSSe) or copper, gallium, indium, and diselenide (CIGS). These include reaching the 15% efficiency milestone both for small-area CZTSSe cells made by the Chinese Academy of Science and a full-sized 0.8 m2 perovskite module made by Microquanta founded by former UNSW students.
In Version 63 of the tables, released in December, the researchers added 6 new results. The group has seen major improvements in all cell categories since 1993, when the tables were first published.
The research group includes scientists from the European Commission Joint Research Centre, Germany''s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems and the Institute for Solar Energy Research (ISFH), Japan''s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
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To the Editor — In a recent paper, Guillemoles et al.1 attempt to clarify and explain the often cited paper by Shockley and Queisser2 (SQ), which defines the limits to photovoltaic conversion by a single-junction solar cell. The SQ paper is not easy to read and is therefore easily misunderstood. As modern solar cells approach theoretical efficiency limits, the fundamentals become particularly important and the effort by Guillemoles et al. is therefore to be welcomed. However, in doing so, the authors have fallen into several pitfalls, and the aim of the present note is to clarify a number of misconceptions and correct some errors in that paper for specialists and non-specialists alike to help disentangle the complexities of the SQ paper.
The Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics is supported by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport under grant number CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/15_003/0000464.
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