PV Efficiency Improves at a Snail's Pace
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Nonetheless, when you take into consideration the fact that current renewable energy consumption in the United States constitutes a only seven percent of total energy consumption, and solar power constitutes a meager one percent of the small renewable energy contribution, the PV production statistics lose a bit of luster.
Solar power's current popularity could be grounded in the fact that the past couple of generations have grown up using small solar powered gadgets. Solar calculators, for example, can continue to work for decades.
As those decades slip by, the PV production statistics show the difficulties researchers face unlocking the full power of solar power.
In a nutshell, the current PV production statistics show a tri-part PV market, consisting of Chrystalline, Thin-film and Solar Concentrator producers.
The cyrystalline and thin-film market operators produce the familiar looking flat panels for the smaller scale residential and industrial sectors of society. Solar Concentrators produce large scale PV products intended for commercial electricity production.
A snail's paced improvement in PV conversion levels, or the amount of sun a PV product can convert into energy, represents the industry's biggest drawback. While solar power production costs have decreased, and conversion percentages have incrementally increased, today solar power still costs three to four times more to produce than the production costs associated with fossil fuel energy production.
There's no disputing the fact that the powerful fossil fuel (including coal) lobbies have successfully squelched information about their industry's practice of externalizing industry costs. Most people read their energy bill, and do not read the cost of war, the cost of a changing climate and the costs of poor health written into it. It might be the case that most people never will read their energy bill with that type of subtlety.
Given the fact that people tend to be set in their energy use habits, the current and near term PV conversion levels are insufficient to move the PV market into the mainstream energy market.
The most recent statistics regarding the average efficiency of the chrystalline solar panels (single crystal and multiple crystal PV) on the market are as follows:
- crystalline silicon (single-crystal) PV cell/module, 19 percent
- crystalline silicon (cast versions of multiple crystals) PV cell/module, 14 percent
- crystalline silicon (ribbon versions of multiple crystals) PV cell/module, 13 percent
Thin-film photovoltaic technologies which use non-crystalized silicon, in conjunction with an addition substance(s), to covert sunlight into energy fair even worse. Their current market niche is based on the fact that their production costs are less than their chrystalline counterparts.
- thin-film (amorphous silicon) PV cell/module, 8 percent
- thin-film other (special photovoltaic material such as CdTe, and CIGS) PV cell/module, 12 percent
The most recent news on thin-film research boasts of CIGS based technology achieving efficiency levels in the 14-16 percent range.
Solar Concentrator systems, which use a light gathering object, such as a mirror, to collect a large amounts of sunlight and redirect it at a PV cell or module, do increase PV efficiency.
However, the most recent efficiency statistics for concentrator PV cell/modules on the market is 34 percent. The efficiency rating coupled with the cost of constructing a large scale concetrator project, partially explains their relatively small portion of the PV market.
The most recent report on Concentrating Photovoltaic Power Industry shows technologies that produce PV modules with a 40% efficiency. Still, it might take efficiencies approaching the 65% range, along with a drastic decrease in production costs, to move the technology into the mainstream energy market.
© 2010. Patricia A. Michaels