President Bush’s Solar America Initiative (SAI) has proved fruitful. The initiative aims at nationwide acceptance of clean solar energy technologies by 2015, and to fulfill this task the U.S. Govt. provides a 22 percent increase in research and development funding at DOE.
DOE has made a vital achievement in production of renewable solar energy. Boeing-Spectrolab has recently achieved a world-record by inventing a new solar cell technology with an efficiency of 40.7%. The concentrator solar cell is based on a multi-junction gallium arsenide-based solar cell. In this cell, individual cells are made of layers. Each layer captures a part of solar spectrum passing through the cell and therefore increases the efficiency.
The technology is efficient to produce clean source of energy in a most cost-effective manner; producing electricity at a cost of 8-10 cents per kilowatt/hour. The achievement will lead the country with an alternate energy source and reduce dependence on foreign oil sources ultimately further strengthening the economy.
The solar cells play a vital part in space industry, as the satellites are mostly dependent on these solar cells. Until now, the satellites use solar cells with a 30 % efficiency, however, now we can expect these new solar cells to give them more juice.
Via: Energy
