New solar cell: record efficiency
The US Department of Energy has announced that a new concentrator solar cell has achieved record levels of conversion efficiency: 40.7 % sunlight-to-electricity conversion performance.
“Attaining a 40 percent efficient concentrating solar cell means having another technology pathway for producing cost-effective solar electricity. Almost all of today’s solar cell modules do not concentrate sunlight but use only what the sun produces naturally, what researchers call “one sun insolation,” which achieves an efficiency of 12 to 18 percent. However, by using an optical concentrator, sunlight intensity can be increased, squeezing more electricity out of a single solar cell.”