Question

Question:Discuss solar cell technologies and give a short overview of next generation solar cells?
Course: Power Generation

Answer 1

Solar cell technologies
A solar cell is a specialized solid state device to convert the optical energy into the electrical energy by the photovoltaic principle. Therefore, the basic principle behind this technique is that when solar energy falls on this kind of materials, a potential difference has been developed, thus, the electron flows through the material to generate electricity. The basic principles behind this technique are that
1.   Under the absorption of light, electron-hole pairs are generated.
2.   These charge carriers are mainly responsible to generate electricity.
3.   Using external circuits, such electricity can be used for other purposes.
The major application areas of solar cell are space technology, manufacturing technology, building automation etc.
Currently, the above system has the following drawbacks
1.   The cost of such system is typically very high.
2.   The system is highly dependent on the weather condition.
3.   The system requires a lot of space to store electricity, thus, the storage of electricity is an expensive task.
Next generation solar cells
The next generation solar cell would be power efficient cells. They are mostly produced using thin-film cells, thus, the cost and space limitations can be overcome. Moreover, it is also expected that the next generation cells can work with multi-layer principle. Scientist are trying to build energy efficient solar materials such as organic solar cell, perovskite solar cell etc. to handle the power efficiency as well as reduction of cost.