We've said it before, and we'll say it again. 2015 is going to be a huge year for the solar industry. A photovoltaic system is installed every four minutes in the US. There are now 142,000 jobs in the solar industry alone. Some experts are even saying that rooftop solar will reach grid parity in all 50 states by 2016. The research behind solar energy is booming, too. Scientists are discovering new ways to decrease costs and increase efficiency of solar panels and coming up with creative, impressive ways to generate power. Here are eight examples.
8 crazy new solar research breakthroughs - Yahoo Finance
Researchers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have for the first time created electricity-generating solar cells with chemicals found in the shells of shrimps and other crustaceans. The materials chitin and chitosan found in the shells are abundant and cheaper to produce than the expensive metals such as ruthenium, which is similar to platinum, that are currently used in making nanostructured solar cells. Currently the efficiency of solar cells made with these biomass-derived materials is low but if it can be improved they could be placed in everything from wearable chargers for tablets, phones and smartwatches, to semi-transparent films over window.
Shrimp shells provide cheap sustainable solar cell material - Electronics Eetimes
French SME, DisaSolar, which specializes in custom made solar modules, has demonstrated the world’s first polychrome photovoltaic module. The module is the result of a three-year program funded by the DGA (Directorate General of Armaments) French army in collaboration with the French academic laboratories CNRS-XLIM-MINACOM and the CEA-INES.
Camouflaged organic solar cells attract architects' attention - Electronics Eetimes
While it's true that cost-effective power storage is going to be a big boon when it does come to market, we simply do not need such innovations to achieve much more renewables penetration than we currently have in the U.S. The facts are 1) the problem of intermittent renewables is overstated, at least at current generation-mix levels; and 2) there are a wide range of already-available solutions that greatly alleviate this problem anyway, without requiring additional storage innovations.
We Don’t Need New Energy Storage Innovations : Greentech Media