Solar power conversion costs

The understanding of the electronic properties of nanostructures is one of the most rapidly advancing areas in science. This has two major implications first, it will lead to the construction of nanocircuitiy and nanocomputers that will use considerably less power than current computers while being faster and smaller and second, it will lead to increasing efficiency and decreasing cost of photovoltaic power conversion ( solar energy ). 

Recently, the Konarka group achieved power conversion efficiencies of 5.2% for a low band gap polymer-fuUerene bulk heterojunction solar cell, as confirmed by NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, USA). This encourages the practical use of this concept for low cost, large area production of photovoltaic devices. 

It has been shown that if nanostructuring enables the cells to achieve 100% quantum efficiency, then the current could be increased from 16 mA/cm up to 21.5 mA/cm, which increases the current and would significantly increase the open-circuit voltage as well, and such a device could achieve a power conversion efficiency as high as 15%. Thus the design and fabrication of a nanostructured solar cell leads to low-cost production techniques at efficiencies matching current thin-film devices. 

Earth-based solar power (EBSP) is abundantly available, but it is variable and intermittent it is less effective in overcast or cloudy conditions and cannot generate electricity at night. Its conversion tends to be material-intensive, leading to high investment costs these are decreasing as more experience is gained in this area (Wiser et al., 2009). 

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