SemiOT: Breakthrough?
SA solar research eclipses rest of the world
Willem Steenkamp
February 11 2006 at 12:50PM
In a scientific breakthrough that has stunned the world, a team of South African scientists has
developed a revolutionary new, highly efficient solar power technology that will enable homes to
obtain all their electricity from the sun.
This means high electricity bills and frequent power failures could soon be a thing of the past...
int.iol.co.za
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
free.financialmail.co.za
At the heart of the new solar technology is a production process that produces a new, homogeneous semiconductor
material that replaces silicon. It is made from a "perfect recipe" that combines five elements: copper, indium,
gallium, selenium and sulphide (CIGSSe).
The breakthrough came after 12 years of research. Alberts solved the "insurmountable problem" of producing a high
quality semiconductor alloy that combines all these elements.
At least for now, the technology has set the pace in the solar energy race that has been going on for the past
15 years. "Our major international competitors didn't concentrate on the most crucial aspect of this technology,
which is the production of the homogeneous semiconductor absorber," says Alberts.
CIGSSe is also much more efficient than silicon at converting incident sunlight into an electric current: less
than one micron of CIGSSe absorbs more than 99% of available incident solar energy, compared with 350 microns of
silicon to do the same job.....
The new technology can be scaled up or down, depending on its application. It is capable of satisfying the
electricity needs of rural and other remote communities and farms; and a stand-alone minigrid can be erected as
a primary electricity source or as a back-up system for mines, industrial firms or a community of, say, 20-50 households. |
