Engineers in Australia set record for solar efficiency

The new world record for unfocused sunlight saw the engineers achieve a conversion rate of 34.5 per cent. This marks nearly a 50 per cent leap on the previous record of 24 per cent efficiency, set by Alta Devices of the United States, although that was achieved over a larger surface area. The theoretical limit for the type of device used is believed to be 53 per cent.

For the new record, the UNSW researchers used a 28-cm2 four-junction mini-module embedded in a prism. This maximises energy extraction by splitting the incoming rays into four bands, using a hybrid four-junction receiver to squeeze electricity from each beam of sunlight.

“This encouraging result shows that there are still advances to come in photovoltaics research to make solar cells even more efficient,” said Dr Mark Keevers from UNSW’s Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics.

“Extracting more energy from every beam of sunlight is critical to reducing the cost of electricity generated by solar cells as it lowers the investment needed, and delivering payback faster.”