Lifeboat Foundation

Solar panels are already an affordable energy solution since they generate enough power over their lifetimes to pay for themselves and then some. However, they do take some investment up front, and some people (and homeowners associations) dislike the way they look.

So what if you could get that power to make electricity from sunlight without having to install solar panels? That’s the beauty of solar paint, as reported by Solar Action Alliance.

The idea behind solar paint (aka photovoltaic paint) is simple: It’d be like ordinary paint but with billions of light-sensitive particles mixed in, as Understand Solar notes.

A team of scientists from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) has revealed their plan to bring a new type of solar cell to the market, one that could revolutionize the field of renewable energy. The solar cell, called a perovskite/silicon tandem, combines two different materials to capture more sunlight and convert it into electricity.

Perovskite is a material that can absorb light very efficiently, while silicon is a material that can maintain its performance for a long time. By stacking them together, the researchers have achieved record-breaking efficiency levels, surpassing the previous limits of single-material solar cells. In 2023, the KAUST team, led by Professor Stefaan De Wolf, reported two world records for power conversion efficiency and five other records achieved by other groups worldwide. This shows the rapid advancement of perovskite/silicon tandem technology and its potential to dominate the solar market.

The market for perovskite/silicon tandems is expected to exceed $10 billion within a decade,” said Dr. Stefaan De Wolf. “KAUST is at the forefront of this revolution, laying the groundwork for affordable, accessible clean energy for all.

The road towards a cleaner future has taken a massive step forward, as a team of researchers from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have successfully conducted laboratory tests of perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells, which offer greater efficiency than crystalline silicon solar cells, which have long been the standard for solar energy technology. This study, which was published today in Science, was conducted at the KAUST Solar Center and holds the potential to design and develop more efficient solar cells for both Saudi Arabia and the entire world.

While the study outlines the incredible advances in laboratory tests with perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells, most notably a 33 percent increase in power efficiency compared to other joint solar cells, the researchers emphasize that many steps must be accomplished before this technology can achieve real-world applications, like commercialization. While they note that challenges for scaling up the technology could only be a few years away, the cost is the primary challenge for the foreseeable future.

Continue reading “Towards a Sustainable Future: KAUST’s Solar Center Paves the Way for Affordable Clean Energy” »

A US startup has demonstrated an indoor solar panel that it claims could replace billions of batteries in domestic devices like TV remotes and wireless keyboards.

California-based Ambient Photonics said its new solar cell can provide constant power from just indoor and ambient outdoor light, delivering three times more power than existing technologies.

Solar power has been used for decades in low-power electronics like calculators, though such cells have so far not been suitable for more energy-intensive devices.

A crippling fuel leak forced a U.S. company on Tuesday to give up on landing a spacecraft on the moon.

Astrobotic Technology’s lander began losing fuel soon after Monday’s launch. The spacecraft also encountered problems keeping its solar panel pointed towards the sun and generating solar power.

“Given the propellant leak, there is, unfortunately, no chance of a soft landing on the moon,” Astrobotic said in a statement.

A new study has revealed a surprising source of bird mortality due to the increasing use of wind and solar energy facilities.

European yacht broker MYSEA has announced the beginning of sales of the AQUON One eco-catamaran – a solar electric yacht powered by the sun and hydrogen fuel cells with luxurious accommodations for eight to ten passengers without any emissions.

A team of researchers has achieved a milestone by developing lightweight and highly efficient stretchable solar cells for energy generation in electronic gadgets.

Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) declare it as the “world’s highest-performing stretchable organic solar cell.”

The development is unique as it utilizes organic material to build the photoactive layer of the solar cell, which turns light into energy.

With the market for wearable electric devices growing rapidly, stretchable solar cells that can function under strain have received considerable attention as an energy source. To build such solar cells, it is necessary that their photoactive layer, which converts light into electricity, shows high electrical performance while possessing mechanical elasticity. However, satisfying both of these two requirements is challenging, making stretchable solar cells difficult to develop.

A KAIST research team from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) led by Professor Bumjoon Kim announced the development of a new conductive polymer material that achieved both high electrical performance and elasticity while introducing the world’s highest-performing stretchable organic solar cell.

Figure 1. Chemical structure of the newly developed conductive polymer and performance of stretchable organic solar cells using the material. (Image: KAIST)