This isn’t exactly like wasting coal generated electricity through inefficiency. It’s not like we are wasting limited sun.
Comment on New chemical trick pushes perovskite solar cells past 26% record efficiency
GreatWhite_Shark_EarthAndBeingsRightsPerson@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
26% is not much
paraphrand@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
blueworld@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
Many commercially installed panels are around 21% efficiency. That’s up from about 18% even ten years ago. There are panels that dramatically higher in conversion, but they tend not to be cost-effective or capable of lasting. Wikipedia has an article on it, and a chart that show the highest research cell NREL has tested is 47.6%. To quote “They reach their highest potential when the incoming sunlight is concentrated by lenses onto miniature solar cell devices of just a few square millimeters in size.” So not production ready nor large deployment.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
26% issue utterly insane and depraved.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 3 weeks ago
Haw haw haw oh man you sure gotcha’d them. They’re all so STUPID and you n me we’re the SMART ones!
Trudge@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Not today, but it would have been pretty impressive in the 80’s. This is a newer type of cell, so let’s see how it does as the technology matures.
eleitl@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Try buying a commercial silicon PV module with 26%.
Fermion@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley–Queisser_limit
Tl:dr The max theoretical efficiency for a silicon solar cell is estimated to be 29.4% with real world high end modules topping out at 26.8%
26% in a lab is not the same as 26% in the field after 5 years, but it is nonetheless a good result.
Solar scales out well, so low conversion effiency isn’t really what determines whether an installation is feasible or not.
If you’re evaluating cheap 20% efficient panels vs expensive 25% efficiency panels, you need only scale up the area of cheap panels by 25% to match output. Plus, panels that start at a lower efficiency experience less derating over time, so the difference in performance diminishes as an installation ages.