Increase Text Size
Decrease Text Size
Email This Story
Share This Story
Reader Comments (4)
Add to Bookmarks
Printer Friendly Version
To help develop key materials for more efficient solar panels, DuPont is to manage prototype development and applications testing for the newly formed DuPont-University of Delaware (UD) Very High Efficiency Solar Cell (VHESC) Consortium. The announcement follows UD's demonstration of a viable design for a solar cell with a potential efficiency increase of 30 percent.
"We believe the science being developed under this consortium can be transformative if the successes of the program to date can be transitioned from the research laboratory to engineering and manufacturing prototypes."
-- Uma Chowdhry, DuPont, Senior VP and Chief Science and Technology Officer
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded the consortium $12.2 million as part of a three-year, multi-phase program that could total up to $100 million.
"We believe the science being developed under this consortium can be transformative if the successes of the program to date can be transitioned from the research laboratory to engineering and manufacturing prototypes," said Uma Chowdhry, DuPont Senior Vice President and Chief Science and Technology Officer.
The DuPont-University of Delaware VHESC consortium will focus on the development of affordable portable battery chargers based on ultra-high efficiency solar cells, which allow readily deployable recharging of batteries. The proposed system offers significant improvements in solar cell efficiencies compared to existing battery chargers and record flat plate terrestrial solar cells that collect both the direct and diffuse radiation and are not mobile.
The DARPA program aims to dramatically improve battery life and provide the soldier with more power at reduced weight, thus improving mobility, survivability and the availability of advanced electronic technologies on the battlefield. With the higher efficiency of the VHESC technology, solar rechargers could be integrated into common battlefield devices such as night vision goggles, radios and GPS navigation systems.
A great improvement in the efficiency of solar cells will clearly have many applications where compactness and weight are important but is probably not the most important development for the increased uptake of solar-electric. To diverge, I remember telling my dad that we should put in a more efficient wind pump to fill our tank from the well. He listened patiently and then explained to me that a 75% efficient wind pump would cost us 10 times as much as our 50% efficient wind pump. It would be more cost efficient to put in a second 50% wind pump. Similarily with solar, a solar panel that would go on the whole sun facing surface of a domestic house instead of the conventional cladding would revolutionise the industry. It wouldn't have to be particularily efficient. It would have to be inexpensive and long lasting.
Previous Article
