Experimental cells that combine silicon with a material called perovskite have broken the efficiency record for converting solar energy—and could eventually supercharge how we get electricity.
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. The sight of solar panels installed on rooftops and large energy farms has become commonplace in many regions around the world. Even in the gray and rainy UK, solar power is becoming a major player in electricity generation. This surge in solar is fueled by two key developments. First, scientists, engineers, and those in industry are learning how to make solar panels by the billions. Every fabrication step is meticulously optimized to produce them very cheaply. The second and most significant is the relentless increase in the panels' power conversion efficiency—a measure of how much sunlight can be transformed into electricity. The higher the efficiency of solar panels, the cheaper the electricity. This might make you wonder: Just how efficient can we expect solar energy to become? And will it make a dent in our energy bills? Commercially available solar panels today convert about 20 to 22 percent of sunlight into electrical power. However, new research published in Nature has shown that future solar panels could reach efficiencies as high as 34 percent by exploiting a new technology called tandem solar cells. The research demonstrates a record…