Highest Efficiency Solar Cell to Be Produced by Boeing


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Officials at the Boeing Company announce that the corporation has begun to mass-produce the C3MJ+, which is the newest type of terrestrial solar cell developed by the wholly-owned subsidiary Spectrolab.

The cells have a conversion efficiency of 39.2 percent, meaning that they convert more than a third of the total amount of sunlight hitting them into usable electricity. This makes it the industry?s highest-efficiency cell, the company says.

The new devices represent an improvement from the former variant, called C3MJ, which had a conversion efficiency level of 38.5 percent. The additional increase in efficiency is due to the company's experience in the field.

Sylmar, California-based Spectrolab Inc. has recently reached an important milestone in its 50-year history, when it produced its 3 millionths multi-junction, space-based solar cell.

The marker was reached after 15 years of being in this business, and represents an indicator of the boom the satellite industry has been experiencing over these past years.

But the new concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) cells are not meant for powering up spacecrafts, landers or rovers, but for obtaining renewable energy from the Sun here on Earth.

?These more efficient cells are drawing interest from a number of current and potential customers. Last year we set a new world record for efficiency with a test cell that peaked at 41.6 percent,? says Russ Jones.

?We now have entered production with essentially this same technology and plan to deliver the first of these 39.2 percent efficiency cells in January,? adds the official, who is the Spectrolab director of CPV Business Development.

He explains that the company has been in the habit of introducing new generations of solar cells in production each year since 2007. Each year, the cells have increased energy-conversion efficiency, the official goes on to say.

Since mid-2009, Spectrolab has sold more than 2 million C3MJ cells, but Jones believe that the customers who have already purchased these devices once will do so again in the future.

?Given the new cells' close similarity to our existing production cells, we believe that our current C3MJ customers will be able to easily upgrade for more efficiency,? he explains.

The company has been in business since 1956, and one of its products was installed on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission, back in 1969.

Both Mars Exploration Rovers feature panels built by Spectrolab, as does a NASA orbiter around the Red Planet. Its solar cells will also go on the future NASA Juno mission to Jupiter.

All panels on the International Space Station (ISS) come from the company too, and about 60 percent of all satellites in orbit can harness sunlight due to the engineering expertise at Boeing.

?Many years of continuous improvement in product design and high-volume manufacturing experience have allowed Spectrolab to develop mature, cost-effective and repeatable processes, resulting in the delivery of high-quality, reliable and affordable products to both space and terrestrial customers,? says David Lillington. the president of Spectrolab.

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Nice to know that the higher end of solar cells is being mass produced. Although I doubt too many existing C3MJ customers will opt to replace their cells for an extra 0.7%, at least not until their current cells die.

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Maybe these are the first mass producible solar cells of near 40% efficiency, but it is not a record of any kind: http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2008/jul/solar072307.html (and this was over 3 years ago)

Using a novel technology that adds multiple innovations to a very high-performance crystalline silicon solar cell platform, a consortium led by the University of Delaware has achieved a record-breaking combined solar cell efficiency of 42.8 percent from sunlight at standard terrestrial conditions.

Either way, thats the largest problem with solar cells currently, they are so inefficient they need to be fairly large to gather enough energy to power just a few homes. Solar is definitely the way to go, it will be around until the sun explodes (well, moves into the next phase, killing us all anyway), it is clean, it can be stored (for those cloudy/rainy days), only problem is they are too inefficient and expensive to be used large-scale.

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Maybe these are the first mass producible solar cells of near 40% efficiency, but it is not a record of any kind: http://www.udel.edu/...olar072307.html (and this was over 3 years ago)

Either way, thats the largest problem with solar cells currently, they are so inefficient they need to be fairly large to gather enough energy to power just a few homes. Solar is definitely the way to go, it will be around until the sun explodes (well, moves into the next phase, killing us all anyway), it is clean, it can be stored (for those cloudy/rainy days), only problem is they are too inefficient and expensive to be used large-scale.

we are getting their

mass production = lower cost

if we can get it at least 60% efficient

mmmm

guess i am gonna power my i7 using solar power :p

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  • 2 months later...

News bits like this must give shivers to the CEOs and the shareholders of our big oil/gas companies. They know their days are numbered and unfortunately, they do everything in their power to delay that and profit as much as they can...while they can.

I dream of a day when all our energy needs will be satisfied by using the free power of the Sun.

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News bits like this must give shivers to the CEOs and the shareholders of our big oil/gas companies. They know their days are numbered and unfortunately, they do everything in their power to delay that and profit as much as they can...while they can.

I dream of a day when all our energy needs will be satisfied by using the free power of the Sun.

you do realize that most oil companies have managers that are not entirely stupid and that they are heavily (well some of them) investing in other energy sources besided oil? Well, maybe you don't, in that case, read up on it some time ;)

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you do realize that most oil companies have managers that are not entirely stupid and that they are heavily (well some of them) investing in other energy sources besided oil? Well, maybe you don't, in that case, read up on it some time ;)

I never implied that they are stupid. I just hinted at their greed, obsession with power, and willingness to preserve the things the way they are.

As for them investing in alternative energy - some of it is true, but for the most part, it is just a PR stunt.

Don't get me wrong thou, I'd love it if they actually wanted to make the change, but I just don't see it happening. I'm particular sceptical of their good intentions especially after learning that some of the revolutionary alternative energy patents were bought out by the big oil/gas companies precisely to suppress the development.

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