The cost of converting sunlight into electricity has fallen by more than 90% in the last decade. Solar power is now the least expensive newly built form of electricity generation.
completed work? incomplete. Today, solar energy works well and is competitively priced and can help us reduce emissions significantly. But with less than 5% of the world's solar energy, we're just getting started.
The solar panels for 2022 are similar to the big phones of the 90s. More likely with the same core technology.
Australia is likely to play a major role in global progress. We have been a pioneer in the development and application of solar energy technology for decades. For 30 of the last 40 years, we have maintained a track record of silicon solar cells. We now have more solar energy distributed per capita than any other OECD country, and meet nearly 15% of our electricity needs. More than 80% of the world's new solar panels are based on PERC cells, a technology developed in Australia.
So what are the possibilities of solar energy? Hundreds of researchers across Australia are focused on two goals: further reducing costs and generating as much electricity as possible from incoming sunlight.
Read more: How Australia's discoveries could soon reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 5%
Why does solar energy need to be increased?
Solar energy has the potential to change industry, transportation, and our way of life if we push technology as far as we can.
Very cheap electricity opens up huge possibilities, from turning water into green hydrogen for energy storage or use in industrial processes, to electricity transportation, power systems, and everything else we use for fossil fuels.
Last year, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency outlined its vision for ultra-low-cost solar energy. The goal is ambitious but achievable.
By 2030, the agency wants commercial solar cell efficiency to reach 30 percent, up from 22 percent today. He wanted the cost of the whole system in the grand scheme of things (modules, switches, transmissions) to drop by 50% to 30 cents per watt.
This requires extensive research. More than 250 Australian researchers are working towards this goal at the Australian Center for Advanced Photovoltaics, a coalition of six universities and CSIRO.
Can silicon really produce?
Solar cells convert sunlight into electricity without moving parts. When sunlight hits silicon, a material commonly used in solar cells, its energy releases electrons that can move around the material, much like the movement of electrons in wires or batteries.
The solar panels on your roof likely started out as desert sand, melted down to silicon dioxide, polished to silicon, and then re-polished to form 99.999% pure polysilicon. For decades, this versatile material has been at the heart of solar energy success. Most importantly, it's scalable, from the pin size of the matrix to square kilometers.
But to get the most out of the sunlight falling on these panels, we need to get past the silicon. We can't achieve 30% efficiency with silicon alone.
Learn about tandem cells: the solar sandwich. Since silicon can only absorb a maximum of 34% of visible light, the researchers focused on adding another layer of material to capture light of different wavelengths.
Perovskite is an option. This group of materials can be printed or painted from a liquid source, making them inexpensive to process. When we stacked this material on top of silicon, we saw a huge jump in solar cell efficiency.
While this is promising, there are still issues to be resolved, especially to ensure the perovskite lasts for the more than 20 years we expect from silicon sheets.
The researchers are also looking at other materials such as polymers and chalcogenides, a group of common minerals including sulfides that have shown promising results in thin and flexible solar cells.
Any new material must not only successfully convert sunlight into electrons, but it must also be abundant in the earth's crust, inexpensively available, and stable enough to ensure a long life. For example, chalcogenides are composed of common elements such as copper, lead, zinc and sulfur.
If we can achieve 30% efficiency, we will pay big profits. The cost of building a large solar garden is reduced. With more efficient solar cells, you need fewer panels and less ground for the same performance.
It would also make fossil fuels less competitive. The efficiency of car engines and coal energy is about 33-35%, which means that most of the energy in fossil fuels is actually lost in the form of heat and noise. You also have to pay for continuous delivery of fuel. Solar and wind energy becomes free once the facility is built.
How can we further reduce costs?
Energy costs for the new solar system in Australia are currently A$50 per megawatt-hour. (Hard coal costs around $100/MWh.) This is according to CSIRO's 2021-2022 Energy Cost Assessment.
By 2030, our Renewable Energy Agency wants to reduce it to just $15/megawatt-hour, or 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. Solar energy at this price, along with storage, will provide reliable and affordable energy 24/7.
Costs will fall as solar cells become more efficient, modules last longer, and cheaper ways to manufacture and implement solar technology are developed.
Ultra-cheap solar will be transformative, enabling Australia to build new capabilities in existing and emerging sectors such as converting hydrogen and ammonia into fuel sources, processing green steel and aluminum and even processing silicon ourselves so we can build more solar panels .
Even with today's technology, demand for solar energy is expected to double and double again in the next 10 years. This means that there will also be a need to understand how the solar industry can grow sustainably and how solar panels can be recycled when the first solar panels have reached the end of their life and need to be re-manufactured.
Australian innovation fueled the solar power boom. As climate change worsens and the need for clean, locally produced energy increases, sun-drenched nations can once again help accelerate the world's transition away from fossil fuels.
Read more: How Australia's discoveries could soon reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 5%
