New Solar Coating Could Significantly Reduce Need for Traditional Solar Farms

New Solar Coating Could Significantly Reduce Need for Traditional Solar Farms

by Sophie Jenkins

London, UK (SPX) Aug 14, 2024

Researchers at the Oxford University Physics Department have introduced an innovative method for generating solar electricity that bypasses the need for conventional silicon-based solar panels. Their new approach involves applying a power-generating coating to everyday objects, ranging from backpacks to vehicles and mobile devices.

This cutting-edge light-absorbing material is not only thin but also flexible, making it adaptable to almost any surface, including buildings. By using a technique developed at Oxford, which layers multiple light-absorbing sheets into a single solar cell, the material captures a broader spectrum of light, resulting in higher energy output from the same amount of sunlight.

For the first time, this ultra-thin material using a multi-junction configuration has been independently verified to achieve over 27% energy efficiency. This performance rivals that of traditional silicon photovoltaics, which have dominated the market. The certification was granted by Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) ahead of the publication of the team’s scientific study later this year.

“During just five years experimenting with our stacking or multi-junction approach we have raised power conversion efficiency from around 6% to over 27%, close to the limits of what single-layer photovoltaics can achieve today,” explained Dr. Shuaifeng Hu, Post Doctoral Fellow at Oxford University Physics. “We believe that, over time, this approach could enable the photovoltaic devices to achieve far greater efficiencies, exceeding 45%.”

Current commercial solar panels typically achieve around 22% efficiency, but the new material’s flexibility and thinness are significant advantages. Measuring just over one micron thick-nearly 150 times thinner than a silicon wafer-this material can be applied to surfaces beyond traditional solar panels.

“By using new materials which can be applied as a coating, we’ve shown we can replicate and out-perform silicon whilst also gaining flexibility. This is important because it promises more solar power without the need for so many silicon-based panels or specially-built solar farms,” added Dr. Junke Wang, Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions Postdoc Fellow at Oxford University Physics.

The team anticipates that their technique will drive down the cost of solar energy and further solidify it as the most sustainable form of renewable power. Since 2010, the average global cost of solar energy has dropped by nearly 90%, making it significantly cheaper than fossil fuels. This new material, particularly thin-film perovskite, is expected to further reduce reliance on silicon panels and large-scale solar farms.

“We can envisage perovskite coatings being applied to broader types of surface to generate cheap solar power, such as the roof of cars and buildings and even the backs of mobile phones. If more solar energy can be generated in this way, we can foresee less need in the longer term to use silicon panels or build more and more solar farms,” Dr. Wang commented.

The research team, consisting of 40 scientists, is led by Professor of Renewable Energy Henry Snaith at Oxford University Physics Department. Their pioneering efforts in photovoltaics, particularly with thin-film perovskite, started about ten years ago and are supported by a custom-built, robotic laboratory.

Their work holds considerable commercial promise and is already being integrated into sectors such as utilities, construction, and automotive manufacturing.

Oxford PV, a UK-based company spun out of the Oxford University Physics Department in 2010 by co-founder and chief scientific officer Professor Henry Snaith, has commenced large-scale production of perovskite photovoltaics at its facility in Brandenburg-an-der-Havel, near Berlin, Germany. This facility is the world’s first to manufacture ‘perovskite-on-silicon’ tandem solar cells at scale.

“We originally looked at UK sites to start manufacturing but the government has yet to match the fiscal and commercial incentives on offer in other parts of Europe and the United States,” said Professor Snaith. “Thus far the UK has thought about solar energy purely in terms of building new solar farms, but the real growth will come from commercialising innovations – we very much hope that the newly-created British Energy will direct its attention to this.”

“The latest innovations in solar materials and techniques demonstrated in our labs could become a platform for a new industry, manufacturing materials to generate solar energy more sustainably and cheaply by using existing buildings, vehicles, and objects,” Professor Snaith added.

“Supplying these materials will be a fast-growth new industry in the global green economy and we have shown that the UK is innovating and leading the way scientifically. However, without new incentives and a better pathway to convert this innovation into manufacturing the UK will miss the opportunity to lead this new global industry,” Professor Snaith concluded.

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