Stanford's New Solar Tech Harnesses Heat, Light

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from a Stanford news release: "Stanford engineers have figured out how to simultaneously use the light and heat of the sun to generate electricity in a way that could make solar power production more than twice as efficient as existing methods and potentially cheap enough to compete with oil. Unlike photovoltaic technology currently used in solar panels — which becomes less efficient as the temperature rises — the new process excels at higher temperatures. ... 'This is really a conceptual breakthrough, a new energy conversion process, not just a new material or a slightly different tweak,' said Nick Melosh, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, who led the research group. 'It is actually something fundamentally different about how you can harvest energy.' And the materials needed to build a device to make the process work are cheap and easily available, meaning the power that comes from it will be affordable." The abstract for the researchers' paper is available at Nature.

Cost per watt chart?

[MyLongNickName]

Can anyone point me to a good cost/watt chart over time? I would love to be able to see how prices have dropped over the past two decades. I keep hearing that solar has to drop in price... but have no baseline to judge our progress.

More senseless, useless hot air...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bring a product to market with all your so-called cheap abundant technology that never seems to pan out. I'm getting pretty damned tired of hearing about all these "advances" when nothing ever comes of it.

Not for home use

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not intended for home/standard use. See below:

From the article:

While most silicon solar cells have been rendered inert by the time the temperature reaches 100 degrees Celsius, the PETE device doesn't hit peak efficiency until it is well over 200 C.

Because PETE performs best at temperatures well in excess of what a rooftop solar panel would reach, the devices will work best in solar concentrators such as parabolic dishes, which can get as hot as 800 C.

When will these ever make it to market

[Kagato]

It seems like every 6 months there's some big breakthrough in Solar that will make it many times better than existing technology. As far as I can tell none of it ever makes it out of the lab and into the market.

compete with what, now?

[Tumbleweed]

Compete with oil? I'm going to guess that they mean with coal, as oil is rarely used as a fuel for power generating stations. Coal and natural gas, yeah, oil - not so much. In the U.S., anyway, only around 1% is generated by petroleum, whereas coal is about 45% and natural gas is about 23%.

*Yawn*

[sycodon]

Call me when I can pick it up at Home Depot.

Re:Interesting, but not yet practical

[Chris Burke]

Impractical for personal residence deployment and use, but I'd certainly call a big solar power generation station providing energy "everyday use". Or at least, I'd like for it to be an everyday use. Much like efficient windmills are much too large for my backyard, yet provide me with clean energy everyday.

Re:I agree

[qoncept]

These "overzealous" researchers are, in your overarching lump sum, the same people who create new technologies that do make it to market. You know for every new technology that makes it, there are several that don't. Is your solution to stop all the research so all the failures will stop breaking your heart?

I live in one of the better parts of the country for solar power, and an installation would cost more than $15,000 to even begin to be practical.

What part of the country is this where putting 15 grand in to your house is such an outrageous sum? A new roof, HVAC, siding, remodeling a room.. pretty much anything you do to your house is going to have a similar cost. And I guarantee none of them would give you the same return until you sell the house.

Solar energy. It's NOT just a technical problem.

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Ditto. I'm getting truly sick of these "improvements in solar technology" stories that turn out to be little more than research lab oddities, penny stock scams, or something so expensive that it will never be commercially viable.

When it looks like Joe-Bob can buy a system for under a thousand at Wal-Mart, and the system is so idiot proof, that even Joe-Bob can plug it in and make it work without killing himself or burning down the trailer, you have something.

Until then, even if it works, solar is still just a rich man's toy.

Solar energy. It's NOT just a technical problem. It's an economic problem.

Re:It's all for VC money

[jusdisgi]

Recent grid solar installations are far more efficient and cost-effective than their counterparts from five years ago. I'd say that suggests all this research is going somewhere. What, you thought that each of these announcements about laboratory successes would instantly result in a new product on the shelf of your local Wal-Mart?