ANU, Chinese scientists to make cheap solar energy

Scientists from the Australian National University are working with Chinese researchers to make solar power technology more affordable for households.

The new solar panels are being developed by the ANU’s Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems in conjunction with scientists from the Tianjin University in China.
ANU project leader Professor Andrew Blakers says the new roof-mounted solar power system will be much cheaper than existing technology.

“Traditionally these kinds of systems have been built with expensive, specialist concentrator cells,” he said.

“We’ll be modifying and upgrading commercially available non-concentrator solar cells which should result in major savings.”

“We’ll also be developing more efficient techniques to reduce the influence of moving shadows which have the potential to eat into the amount of energy being generated.”

ABC (Aus)