The development carried out in IBM's research laboratories focuses on processes, materials and equipment adapted to the production of solar cells of the CIGS type - English abbreviations for the materials copper, indium, gallium selenide
IBM and the Tokyo company Ohka Kogyo (Tok) Mipan are cooperating in the development of new and cheap methods for producing solar energy in processes that are more efficient and convenient to use and operate compared to the technologies known today.
The development carried out in IBM's research laboratories focuses on processes, materials and equipment adapted to the production of solar cells of the CIGS type - English acronyms for the materials copper, indium, gallium selenide.
The high costs of solar cells that directly convert sunlight into electricity, compared to generating electricity by other means, currently prevent the expansion of the use of solar energy.
Thin film technology, advanced, such as CIGS, is seen as the great promise of the solar energy field, and has a high potential to reduce the costs of the solar cell and the electricity produced in it.
IBM researchers are developing an innovative production process, without the need to use a vacuum, based on the use of special solutions for the construction of CIGS type solar cells - a process similar in some of its principles to the production process of computer chips.
The current generation efficiency in the new cells is extremely high, and it stands at 15% or higher: 15% of the energy of the sunlight is eventually converted into electricity. For the sake of comparison, it should be noted that the average efficiency of solar cells in existing technologies is around 6-12% at most.
IBM's technology is combined with the advanced coating technologies of the Japanese company, which for many years has been producing raw materials for the manufacturing processes of semiconductors and LCD screens.
Solar cells in thin layer technology, Thin Film in a CIGS environment allows to build solar panels that are a hundred times thinner compared to cells based on silicon wafers, and to combine them with cheap glass - all in order to ensure lower than ever costs of photovoltaic cells.
Another advantage of the new technology is the possibility to integrate the solar cells based on it also on a flexible back infrastructure, adapted to surfaces such as buildings, tiltable windows and other surfaces. The cell construction process based on the use of a solution allows for the "printing" of a solar energy absorption array on flexible modules that can be rolled around themselves, or directly on glass surfaces, while eliminating the need for time- and energy-intensive production processes required by traditional production methods.
IBM's research and development laboratories deal with four main areas in the world of photovoltaic cells: the researchers examine existing technologies in the way of developing cheaper and more efficient solar cells based on Siliron, develop new production solutions based on the use of solutions, examine cells that carry out a process of concentrating sunlight in order to increase The energy yield from each given unit of area, and explore the gray areas that open up thanks to the availability of new manufacturing technologies based on nanotechnology, such as the imprinting of dots with quantum precision in semiconductors, and nanowiring of microscopic current transmission lines, at the chip level.
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I read in the magazine "Blue" (about yachts and sailors) about attempts for quite a few years to make flexible solar cells, in order to attach them to sails, the area of which ranges from 60 square meters to about 130 square meters, which is what solar energy is all about. An average house needs space up to 25 square meters. This way you can really save on oil-based energy that is needed in huge quantities in yachts, and on the other hand you can install a "real" electric motor that will also really move the yacht to a much more reasonable speed than 6 knots. Not to mention many reserves for operating many additional consumers. Just to To clarify, my brother sometimes goes out to sea with a very small yacht (8 m) the cost of such an outing amounts to about NIS 800.
The direct solar radiation - Eep (direct beam or normal incidence radiation), is measured on a plane perpendicular to the rays, or on a horizontal plane - Eeph.
s Eep.cos = s Eeph = Eep.sin
s – the angle of the sun relative to the horizon
s – the angle of the sun relative to the zenith (perpendicular to the horizon)
The total radiation reaching a horizontal plane on the surface of the earth is known as the global radiation - Eegh and it is a summation of the direct radiation - Eeph, and the radiation scattered from the entire dome of the sky - Eedh, when both are measured on a horizontal plane. Therefore - Eegh is given in the beacon:
W/m2))= Eep.sins + Eedh Eegh = Eeph + Eedh = Eep.coss + Eedh
On a clear and bright day, when the atmosphere is clean, the skin of the direct radiation reaches up to 90-93% of all the radiation that reaches the surface of the earth, the rest comes, as mentioned, as scattered radiation from the sky. As the atmosphere thickens, the intensity of global radiation decreases due to the decrease in the intensity of direct solar radiation, but the relative share of diffuse radiation increases. At a certain stage of cloudiness, heavy haze or turbidity in Hamsin conditions, the direct solar radiation decreases, and with it of course the direct sunlight, to a negligible value. In such a situation all the radiation is scattered and it reaches the earth only from the sky. We will see later that the distribution of total solar radiation in the atmosphere is not the same as the distribution in the visible range.
According to the document on the website
http://www.energy.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/76D73BD0-B4D5-4B0F-840D-85D5E15F400C/0/03ch36p.doc
I'm really happy to know that in recent times the efficiency of the solar collectors has been increasing more and more.
my father
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In Wikipedia it is written that the "solar constant" is the average power of the sun's radiation when the earth is at its average distance from the sun. This constant was defined as 1.3 kilowatts per square meter.
If the efficiency is 15%, it comes out to 195 watts per meter, so is it possible to light a 200 watt lamp with it? And when I turn on a 2000 watt kettle, do I need another 10 square meters or so? I don't know if it's correct to do the calculation this way, so someone correct me if I'm wrong because I don't understand it.
In short, how many watts per square meter during peak lighting hours?