Scientists and researchers of RTI International (Research Triangle Institute) have developed an all new solar technology that is expected to cut down solar costs as much as by 75 percent and to make solar energy more affordable than before. Scientists at the United States headquartered RTI International confirmed that this new solar material can be produced for less than $20 per square meter and can help speed-up the market. Scientists claimed that this solar technology can produce solar cell using low-cost materials and easy processing techniques.
Solar energy represents less than 1 percent of the overall global energy supply today, and the reason for the extreme low figures is the rising cost of solar panels and the necessary infrastructure for producing renewable solar energy. To overcome this problem, RTI International researchers came up with an amazing new solar technology which claims to minimize the solar panel costs and to make it more lucrative. Scientists have confirmed that the solar cells will increase the power conversion efficiency as compared to similar solar processing technologies by 5 percent.
Unlike other solar panels, which are made from crystalline silicon, these RTI-made solar cells are made from semiconductor particles called colloidal quantum dots. These colloidal quantum dots are inorganic semiconductors that are synthesized and processed, and can capture light, converting it into energy, thus making solar panels more efficient. Because of their extremely smaller size and low cost processing techniques, they differ from their traditional counterparts and that ultimately makes them cheaper to produce and store. Not only these solar cells are more affordable, but they also possess high infrared sensitivity to different frequencies of the solar spectrum.
According to the demonstration tests on the new solar cells, it was concluded that the cells have consistently been showing power conversion efficiency of more than 5 percent as compared to other conventional photovoltaic technologies. One of the senior research scientists at RTI pointed out that the efficiency of these solar cells is limited by the amount of sunlight they absorb which eventually can be increased by a number of techniques. Unlike traditional technologies, the RTI solar cells have the potential to be processed under room temperature, which finally reduces the costs of processing and its efficiency.