Australian solar technology breaks the 20% barrier

Australian solar research has produced photovoltaic solar cells that recently broke the 20% barrier for conversion efficiency in capturing the sun’s energy, the highest-ever efficiency for a low-cost, commercial silicon solar cell.

Production capacity of Pluto solar cells, from US-listed manufacturer Suntech, reached 0.5 GW last year - enough to power 300,000 average homes that typically have eight solar panels on them for at least 25 years. Pluto technology was developed by Suntech in collaboration with Professors Martin Green and Stuart Wenham at the ARC Photovoltaics Centre for Excellence.

“We recently broke through the 20% conversion-efficiency target for solar cells using solar-grade silicon, which many experts thought was impossible, and we’ve significantly lowered the costs compared to other technologies,” said Professor Green, from the University of New South Wales.

Professor Green believes this success was earned through deep collaboration with Suntech: “We brought our photovoltaic know-how together with their manufacturing expertise and developed new tools and processes to produce solar cells 10 times the size of our lab-scale devices.”

Suntech’s expertise was particularly important in lowering the production cost of the solar cells. For example, the company developed cheaper processing methods that allowed the substitution of expensive silver and titanium materials used in the production of conventional crystalline-silicon solar cells.

“Without this collaboration and its funding through the Australian Solar Institute, Pluto would have remained a lab prototype rather than a commercial reality,” said Professor Wenham. “As we continue to refine the Pluto technology and push up the conversion efficiency, we have no doubt that it will capture an increasing share of the global solar market.”

International studies predict that the present $100 billion/year photovoltaic industry will grow to well in excess of $1 trillion/year as it becomes the major supplier of the world’s electrical energy needs.

“While many photovoltaic researchers around the world are focused on the holy grail of higher and higher efficiencies, we believe Pluto technology has struck the ideal balance between conversion efficiency and manufacturing costs to create a truly viable alternative for electricity production,” said Professor Green.

The Pluto technology recently won a 2012 Collaborative Innovation Award at the Cooperative Research Centres Association conference in Adelaide.