A new tandem thin-film silicon solar cell efficiency record was recently set by a PhD student at TU Delft by the name of Hairen Tan. The new record conversion efficiency of 14.8% was achieved via the use of a variety of “innovative techniques” for which Tan was awarded the Young Research Award at the 6th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy
Roughly one plug-in car (100% electric or plug-in hybrid) is currently being sold for every two conventional hybrids sold in the state of California, according to recent numbers. These numbers are coming to us via a recent article published by Yahoo! Autos that stated that almost 10% of California’s new car sales are now electric vehicles… however, that figure included
An interdenominational Christian group in Australia is currently raising funds to purchase solar panels and installation for the Prime Minister’s official residence, a crowdfunding opportunity that will either act as a push in the right direction for Australia’s leader, or yet another slap in the face for his current political stance on energy and the environment. I’ve made no secret
The US Department of Commerce has been deliberating over imposing duties on Chinese and Taiwanese solar PV imports for over half the year, but on Tuesday the Department finally announced its decision to penalize all Chinese shipments at a base rate of 165%, which could see duties jump past 200% in some cases. Specifics of the announcement are below, but
Why are some of these new concentrating solar cell systems reminding us of the Eye of Sauron? Just wondering, because the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is out with a new solar cell specially designed for use in concentrating solar systems. The lab has already demonstrated the new solar cell at 700 suns concentration, and it is capable of getting up
What’s the first thing you think of when you hear someone say Arizona? Heat? Sunlight? Well, apparently some of Arizona’s leaders don’t want solar power, even though there is plenty of sunlight year round. If you live in the Phoenix area and want to take advantage of all the sunlight with solar power, the local utility might be against you.
An astonishing one out of every five households in Australia is now relying on solar energy, a new report from the Australian Bureau of Statistic (ABS) reveals. Just 3 years ago only 5 percent of homes used rooftop solar panels or solar water heating, but today a full 19 percent do. To put that into perspective, by most accounts, fewer
Water certainly isn’t our primary focus, but technologies that make our water cleaner are an important part of cleantech, and we do have 531 articles published on the category. Water purification and water desalination technologies are very useful and to some perhaps even interesting, but they don’t exactly put a spring in my mental boot… for the most part. One
Figured confirmed by the UK’s Energy and Climate Change Minister, Amber Rudd, show that the country’s renewable energy industry served to displace nearly 38 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2013. The question was tabled by Scottish National Party MP Eilidh Whiteford, prompting Ms. Rudd to provide the statistics in question, which read thus: The UK as a whole displaced
There has long been a huge gap in the solar market, a gap between large, utility-scale solar projects and rooftop solar projects. It would be a disservice to numerous companies, organizations, citizen investors, and solar-supportive politicians to say that there has been nothing between those two installation types, but this middle space has long been high on potential and short