ANU Researchers Discover A New Way To Develop Low-Cost Solar Battery

First Posted: Nov 23, 2016 03:50 AM EST

Electricity is a commodity and most specially a necessity of everyone regardless of the supplier or the source. Nowadays, different kinds of electricity sources have been rampantly arising such as hydroelectric power, fossil fuels, geothermal and nuclear. However, the most commonly known outlet of energy is the solar cell technology.

Solar cell technology that is previously known as "solar battery." It is a device that converts the energy of sunlight directly into electricity by means of photovoltaic effect. In many years, this solar cell technology has gained popularity that turned out to sell costly to the public.

However, according to the report released by Solar Daily, researchers at the Australian National University have discovered a new way to create high-efficiency semi-transparent perovskite solar cells in a breakthrough that could point to more efficient and cheaper solar electricity.

According to Dr. Tom White from the ANU Research School of Engineering, the new fabrication method could significantly upgrade the performance of perovskite solar cells that can be combined with conventional silicon solar cells to generate more efficient solar electricity.

Dr. White also stated that perovskite cells were extremely efficient in generating electricity from visible light-blue, green and red -- while conventional silicon solar cells were good at transforming infrared light into electricity.

"The prospect of adding a few additional processing steps at the end of a silicon cell production line to make perovskite cells is very exciting and could boost solar efficiency from 25 per cent to 30 per cent. By combining these two cells, the perovskite cell and the silicon cell, we are able to make much better use of the solar energy and achieve higher efficiencies than either cell on its own." Tom White at ANU Research School of Engineering said.

On the contrary, Dr. White emphasized that although perovskite cells can enhance its efficiency; they are not yet stable enough for consumption such as one used in rooftops. This new fabrication technique could help to create more stable perovskite cells.

The new fabrication method consists of adding small quantity of the element indium into one of the cell layers during fabrication, which could ameliorate the cell's power output by approximately 25 percent.

"We have been able to achieve a record efficiency of 16.6 per cent for a semi-transparent perovskite cell, and 24.5 per cent for a perovskite-silicon tandem, which is one of the highest efficiencies reported for this type of cell," Dr. Tom White said.

Furthermore, Dr. White mentioned that the research placed ANU in a small group of labs globally with the aptitude to enhance the effectiveness of solar cell using perovskites.

Finally, the progress is based on the state-of-the-art silicon cell reseach led at ANU. It is part of $12.2 million "High-efficiency silicon/perovskites solar cells project" that is supervised by the University of New South Wales and is maintained by a $3.6 million funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.