Solar Cell 123

One of the latest hot technology in the Valley is Solar Cell. It hits the right market nowadays: Energy. Solar cells are made by silicon mostly. Its function is to translate sun light into Energy. So, source is free and the cost is the device itself. One application is house hold electricity generator (placing solar cells on the roof). Product lifetime is usually 20 years. Some keywords for this topic:

1. Dollar per Watt : most solar cells in the market are $4 per watt. It means you need to invest $100 on solar cells to operate a 25 watt light bulk. But then you never need to pay electricity bill again. Most researchers are working on $1 per watt solar cell, which believed to be the breaking point for Solar cells to become main stream.

2. Efficiency: most solar cell have only 10~15% efficiency nowadays. So it can only translate 15% of sun light into energy. This is mainly due to the limitation of silicon itself. Higher efficiency translates to lower Dollar per watt.

3. Spectrum: If the Solar cell can absorb light with border spectrum, there will be more source available to convert to energy (think as a radio that can receive more channel). This again translates to lower Dollar per Watt.

Well, just some self-study to prepare for this soon-to-be main stream technology.

Solar cell reading 1
Solar cell reading 2