Within five years, the efficiency of perovskite-based solar cells has increased considerably. Meanwhile, the cells convert more than 20% of solar irradiation into electric power. Low material costs and small amounts of material required – thanks to the thin-film technology – make perovskite solar cells a promising alternative. Costs for the conversion of sunlight into electric power can be reduced. A major drawback of the technology, however, is the use of environmentally harmful lead compounds for the production of the perovskite crystals.

Perovskite solar cells - can production costs be lowered? - Electronics Eetimes

Researchers from Rice University claim that they could make it easier for engineers to harness the power of light-capturing nanomaterials to boost the efficiency and reduce the costs of photovoltaic solar cells.

Can metallic nanoparticles lower the cost of solar cells? - Electronics Eetimes

University of Exeter researchers have discovered techniques for generating photovoltaic energy by mimicking the v-shaped posture adopted by Cabbage White butterflies to heat up flight muscles before take-off.  The results could increase solar panel power by almost 50 per cent. By replicating the ‘wing-like’ structure, the power-to-weight ratio of the overall solar energy structure is increased 17-fold, making it more efficient.

Butterflies help boost solar panel power by 50 per cent - Electronics Eetimes

A new world record for the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity has been established. The multi-junction solar cell converts 46% of the solar light into electrical energy and was developed by Soitec and CEA-Leti, France, together with the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Germany.

New world record for solar cell efficiency at 46% — Fraunhofer ISE

The startup hit an NREL-certified cell efficiency of 21.2 percent in 2014 with its back contact cell and looks to produce PV modules at 20 percent efficiency.    As we reported previously, Solexel is seeking to partner in Malaysia to build the modules and cells. The firm has a megawatt-scale pilot line in Milpitas, which it intends to "copy-exact in Malaysia," according to CFO Mark Kerstens. Solexel is hoping to mass-produce 35-micron-thick, high-performance, low-cost monocrystalline solar cells using a lift-off technology based on a reusable template and a porous silicon substrate.

Saudi Investors Join $70 Million VC Round for Solexel’s Thin Silicon Solar Technology : Greentech Media

Researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (Menlo Park, CA) and Stanford University have developed a manufacturing technique that could double the electricity output of inexpensive solar cells by using a microscopic rake when applying light-harvesting polymers.

Micro rake doubles efficiency of polymer solar cells - Electronics Eetimes

Researchers have shown a new way to help solar cells track the sun as it moves across the sky, which could boost a panel’s energy generation by 40 percent.

Solar Cells with Kirigami Cuts Capture More Sunlight | MIT Technology Review

The new solar fuel generation system, or artificial leaf, is described in the August 27 online issue of the journal Energy and Environmental Science. The work was done by researchers in the laboratories of Lewis and Harry Atwater, director of JCAP and Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science.

The artificial leaf creating hydrogen fuels - Agenda - The World Economic Forum

For the first time in the history of the modern power grid, a non-utility, non-RTO entity called GridSolar is managing a part of the electric power grid. This would be illegal in any state other than Maine. GridSolar is demonstrating the value distributed generation, demand response and energy efficiency can provide to the power grid and ratepayers. In the process, it is turning the central argument made by utility trade groups against distributed energy on its head. Rather than imposing additional costs on ratepayers, distributed energy can significantly reduce the economic burden borne by ratepayers. GridSolar is likely to have a more profound impact on the structure of the utility industry than any technical breakthrough in solar, energy storage or any other distributed energy technology in the past decade.

The Biggest Solar Breakthrough You've Never Heard Of - Forbes

Researchers at MIT (Cambridge, MA) have developed a transparent polymer film that can store solar energy during the day and release it later as heat, whenever it is needed. The material could be applied to many different surfaces, such as window glass or clothing. It could mean that clothing could, on demand, release sufficient heat to keep the wearer warm. The material could be used in a car windshield to store the sun's energy and then release it as a burst of heat to melt away a layer of ice.

Smart2.0 - New material stores solar energy

Silicon probably won’t be replaced as the dominant solar material anytime soon, but it might not be too long before it gets a partner from a promising class of materials called perovskites. A group led by Henry Snaith, a physicist at the University of Oxford and leading perovskite researcher, has demonstrated what it says is a viable pathway to a device that combines a conventional silicon cell with a perovskite cell to boost the efficiency of that silicon cell by several percentage points.

Promising Solar Material Could Upgrade Silicon Cells | MIT Technology Review

Scientists at the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) and the USA's Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) claim to have jointly set a world record for converting non-concentrated sunlight into electricity using a dual-junction III-V/Si solar cell. The newly certified record conversion efficiency of 29.8 percent was set using a top cell made of gallium indium phosphide developed by NREL, and a bottom cell made of crystalline silicon developed by CSEM using silicon heterojunction technology. The two cells were made separately and then stacked by NREL.

Dual-junction solar cell claims world conversion efficiency record - Electronics Eetimes

Scientists at the Vienna Technical University have developed a novel concept: They succeeded in combining high-temperature photovoltaics with an electrochemical element and thus utilise ultraviolet light to pump oxygen ions through a ceramic electrolyte membrane. In other words, they succeeded in storing the energy of the UV light chemically. This could become interesting because it could lead the way to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, just by means of (UV) light.

Solar power, stored chemically - Electronics Eetimes

Researchers from the University of Ohio have shown that tree-like structures made with electromechanical materials are suitable for converting winds or structural vibrations into electricity. The "trees" would be relatively simple structures – a trunk with a few branches and no leaves – and they may not be scaled up to sit among conventional forests or compete with windmills or solar farms. More likely they would be used at the small scale to power sensors that monitor the structural integrity of buildings, bridges and other civil engineering structures.

Picking up good vibrations: artificial trees harvest energy - Electronics Eetimes

A Japanese research team has developed a new method to grow high-quality mono silicon for solar cells at lower costs. The researchers, which are led by Takashi Sekiguchi, a leader of the Nano Device Characterization Group, Nano-Electronic Materials Unit, International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), and Koichi Kakimoto, a professor at the Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, have invented a new casting method called a single-seed cast method which is claimed to improve the quality of crystals created compared to conventional casting methods and lead to the development of more efficient silicon solar cells.

Mono-silicon crystal growth technique lowers solar sell costs - Electronics Eetimes

First Solar, Inc. has claimed a world record for cadmium-telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic (PV) research cell conversion efficiency, achieving 22.1 percent efficiency certified at the Newport Corporation’s Technology and Applications Center (TAC) PV Lab.

First Solar claims CdTe PV conversion efficiency world record - Electronics Eetimes

Driving forward in the race for highly efficient solar cells, First Solar says it has converted 22.1 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity using experimental cells made from cadmium telluride—a technology that today represents around 5 percent of the worldwide solar power market. The company’s commercial line of solar cells has reached an energy conversion efficiency of 16.4 percent. The theoretical efficiency limit for cadmium telluride cells is above 30 percent—significantly higher than that of conventional silicon.

First Solar’s Cells Break Efficiency Record

Researchers have found a way to boost the efficiency of perovskite solar cells to 31%. Solar cells using perovskite materials are inexpensive and easy to fabricate and the efficiency at which they convert photons to electricity has increased more rapidly than any other material to date, starting at 3% in 2009 and rising to 22% today. A team at the Molecular Foundry and the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, both at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, CA), used atomic force microscopy image of the surface of a perovskite solar cell to show a new path to much greater efficiency from manipulating the individual grain boundaries.

Perovskite solar cell discovery promises dramatic efficiency boost | Electronics EETimes

In Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, the goal isn’t just to isolate problems but to find solutions to our planet’s most pressing issues. One of those issues is how to generate efficient, renewable energy — and researchers may have just found a solution in a device dubbed “bionic leaf 2.0” because it functions even more efficiently than the fastest-growing natural plants. They’ve published a paper detailing their work in the journal Science this week.

Bionic Leaf 2.0 Makes Nature Seem Inefficient | Digital Trends

Solar power is fast becoming a more energy efficient green power conversion source, but mainly in sunny places. A breakthrough with graphene could extend that reach to muggier climates thanks to rain energy harnessing solar cells. Graphene is a relatively new material that’s proving to be a wonder. Thanks to its high conductivity and structure it has been used to create solar cells that not only use sun for power, but rain too.

Solar panels that also use rain for power could change the UK forever - Pocket-lint

Researchers at the University of Kentucky working with scientists from Daimler in Germany and the Institute for Electronic Structure and Laser in Greece have discovered a single atom-thick flat material that could upstage graphene and advance solar energy conversion. The material, which is reported in Physical Review B, Rapid Communication, is made up of silicon, boron and nitrogen - all light, inexpensive and earth abundant elements - and is stable, a property many other graphene alternatives lack.

Silicon based material could upstage graphene for solar energy conversion | Electronics EETimes

Saule Technologies has created a prototype for a thin, flexible solar panel. The translucent material can charge cellphones and might even replace roof-mounted solar panels.

Saule Technologies made thin solar cells that can charge phones - Business Insider

Thankfully, there is a third possibility: an alternative source of energy. In order to make a visible difference and truly change the world, the source would need to be cheap, environmentally friendly and more efficient than those currently available. One of those new sources could be osmotic power generation, also known as blue energy. Blue energy isn’t exactly a new concept. This method of producing power was first uncovered in the 1970s by professor Sidney Loeb. Osmosis describes a spontaneous movement of solvent molecules through a semi-permeable membrane from the region of lower solute concentration into a region of higher solute concentration, in an effort to equalize concentrations on both ends of the membrane.

This breakthrough in ‘blue energy’ could change the world - MarketWatch