'Putncalls' pid='61473' datel Wrote:The EPA is a political animal. The physics don't match the goal. 24% is the the efficiency limit on PVs. That isn't going to change unless photons start mating.
Put, that's not the first time that you mention it, but I have to disagree here..
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
There are all kinds of tricks to increase efficiencies (materials, designs, concentrating light, etc.):
Comparing to the best efficiencies of solar panels on the market today is not really fair, as these solar panels are cost-competitive. A better comparison would be against other research cells in NREL’s Best Research Cell Efficiencies.
The last record (44.0%) was set by the NREL III-V Multijunction Photovoltaics Group in November, 2012.
And this really isn't even terribly irrelevant as cell efficiency is only one amongst many metrics at which solar panels improve and can be summed up with price per watt, which has decreased from $25 per watt a couple of decades ago to $5 per watt 10 years ago to $0.50 today. There are literally hundreds of companies and labs around the world on the trail of improvements like:
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
I've covered a tiny fraction of these here (I have a much bigger private collection of articles but even that is just a fraction of what is happening in the real world). No, not all these approaches will pan out and develop into commercial products that can compete, this is a large trial-and-error effort of hundreds of companies and labs trying different things sustaining the improvements.