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QuantaSol unveils 28.3% efficient single-junction solar cell World record made public at UK’s Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition

Kingston-upon-Thames UK, June 30th 2009:

QuantaSol Ltd, a new independent designer and manufacturer of strain-balanced quantum-well solar cells, has developed what it believes to be the most efficient single junction solar cell ever manufactured. Developed in just two years, QuantaSol’s single-junction device has been independently tested by Fraunhofer ISE as achieving 28.3% efficiency at greater than 500 suns.QuantaSol was established in June 2007 as a spin-out of Imperial College London to commercialise the University’s solar cell IP and offer devices to concentrator … Continue Reading

First Solar has indicated that its manufacturing cost has now fallen to 93 cents per watt, down 5% in three months and down 28% in a year.

By 2014, it expects to drive down cost per watt to make solar modules to fall to between 52 and 63 cents by 2014. The biggest driver of the lower costs is better efficiency, it said. Production per fabrication line is expected to nearly double over the next five years.

The company believes its ongoing focus on cost reduction enables continued growth even as subsidies decline.

Earlier this year, when the company had … Continue Reading

Bonn, Germany (SPX) Jul 03, 2009On 1 July 2009 the solar-thermal power station Andasol 1, located in the Spanish province of Granada in Andalusia, was officially inaugurated. At the present time, Andasol 1 is the largest solar power station in the world. Researchers at the German Aerospace Centre were heavily involved in the development of key technologies and identified the most suitable location with the help of various tools, including satellite data.They did this on behalf of Solar Millennium AG, the project development company. In addition, their measuring methods contributed towards the precision design of the parabolic … Continue Reading

The burning hot sun at the equator is a far cry from the weak sunlight that reaches higher latitudes. To make the most of such different conditions you need specially tailored solar cells, according to UK firm Quantasol.So the company has come up with a new solar cell design that can be tuned to the light at a particular latitude, and in the process broken a 21-year-old efficiency record for one type of solar cell.Semiconductor materials such as gallium arsenide (GaAs) are more efficient at converting light to electricity than the cheaper silicon cells most common … Continue Reading

Geneva (AFP) June 26, 2009Round-the-world balloooning pioneer Bertrand Piccard unveiled his solar-powered aircraft in Switzerland on Friday, ready for another trend-setting circumnavigation of the globe powered solely by the sun.The wasp-shaped prototype of Solar Impulse, with the wingspan of a jumbo jet, was rolled out before some 800 guests at an airfield near Zurich after six years of development.Ten years after Piccard and Briton Brian Jones achieved the first non-stop flight around the globe in the Orbiter balloon, the Solar Impulse team are aiming to demonstrate that reliance on renewable energy is not a pipedream…. Continue Reading