Even with the ability to convert sunlight into electricity with high efficiency using photovoltaic solar cells, many challenges prevent us from being able to power all our energy needs with solar panels.
The company is now using the technology to make multicrystalline silicon solar cells, and HiPerforma is the first product using the new silicon cells, Beebe said.
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Using energy to make solar cells is, accordingly, speculative, not a long term means of reducing consumption of non-renewable fuels.
Two, they can substitute grid-based power with self-generated power, i.e. power produced onsite using solar panels, fuel cells or whatever that never flows through the grid.
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Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University have jointly devised a patent-pending method to build organic solar cells using plant-derived substrates.
Suntech Power Holdings ( STP - news - people ) (17, STP) , also Chinese, is the largest maker of solar cells using silicon wafers.
The idea is that Solar Impulse will take off and fly under its own power using electricity from the 11, 628 solar cells covering the upper surfaces of its wings and tailplane.
The San Jose company, founded in 2002, makes solar panels using copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) solar cells.
The firm also sells imaging and infrared detector products that SunPower makes using its thin-wafer manufacturing process for solar cells.
Using a micron-thick layer of gallium arsenide, it can get flexible solar cells that are 29 percent efficient, nearly double commodity silicon cells.
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Using its proprietary crystalline technology, called String Ribbon, the company develops and manufactures solar power cells and panels.
Solar cells are also made of silicon, and the latest fashion is to concentrate sunlight on them using mirrors.
Utility-scale concentrating solar power (CSP) systems that produce electricity using lenses or mirrors to focus radiation on thermal collectors or photovoltaic cells draw criticism from environmental groups for taking up too much desert land, thus displacing certain animal and reptile species.
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