New solar cells could compete with coal

Canberra Times
Monday 22/6/2009 Page: 5

Solar cells will be able to produce power as cheaply as coal at retail within three years, the founder of the world's largest solar cell producer says. SunTech founder and Australian solar scientist Zhengrong Shi said the cost of manufacturing solar cells, now at $US2 ($A2.45) per watt, would halve in what would become a $A246 billion to $A370 billion industry by 2012. "At present, this technology is already commercialised, or very close to being commercialised,'' Dr Shi said.

SunTech has agreed with Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne to develop the new solar cells that are twice as efficient as those currently available. The cells will be based on plasmonics, a technology described as "light on a wire", which involves passing light-like waves along nanoscale wires. The university will contribute $A3 million to the project, which will be matched by SunTech. The researchers hope to have the cells ready for manufacture within five years.

Dr Shi said there was a limit to the efficiencies of first and second generation solar cell technologies. For example, the theoretical limit for silicon solar cells was 29%. "We need to have some new technological breakthrough for its to go beyond that," he said. "For plasmonics, [it] can further enhance the efficiency by more than 50%." SunTech sold $A2.46 billion worth of solar cells last year and has headquarters in North America, Switzerland and Shanghai.

Dr Shi said Australia was a world leader in providing solar cell technology. The thin-film solar cells research group at the Centre of Excellence for Photovoltaic Engineering at the University of New South Wales, which Dr Shi led from 1992 to 1995, has set world records in high efficiency silicon solar cells. The research group held the record of 24.7% for silicon solar cell efficiency and in 2008, after a revision of the international standard, its record became 25%.

Dr Shi has worked to commercialise the university's most efficient solar cell technologies into mass production, calling it Pluto technology. In their mass production line, they achieve average efficiency of more than 19%. "This is technology racing," Dr Shi said. "In Europe, the whole renewable energy target will reach 20% of total energy consumption by 2020, and solar electricity generation by 2020 will be 12%.

"In the United States, Obama promised he is going to triple renewable energy generation within the next three years. "Australia as a country could export IP [intellectual property]. I will say IP can actually generate more income than manufacturing sometimes." Dr Shi is speaking in Melbourne today at the Nanophotonics Down Under 2009 Devices and Applications conference, which will look at how laser and light interact with the very small.

Other presentations will include talks about new generation DVDs, a five-dimensional optical data storage system, and how researchers are working to replicate photosynthesis to produce hydrogen and energy.