Renewable energy: solar panels soon to be significantly cheaper?

Solar panels are a global symbol of renewable energy. However, the technology still has a huge catch: it is associated with high costs. Scientists may now have found a way to significantly reduce the costs. A reduction of a whopping 70 percent is on the cards.

Renewable energy for everyone?

If you want to keep your carbon footprint as small as possible, you can significantly reduce your energy consumption. If this is not easily possible, the use of renewable energies is the ideal solution. Many homeowners are turning to solar energy. However, it always takes several years for the high purchase costs of a photovoltaic system to be amortized. The hurdles for new and existing homeowners are correspondingly high.

A team of researchers, including scientists from the University of Surrey, University of Cambridge and China’s Zhengzhou University, has apparently achieved a small breakthrough in the field of solar technology. They have developed a solar cell with a double-sided design that should work much more efficiently and is also cheaper to produce. The cells consist largely of carbon nanotubes. These are 70 percent cheaper to produce than conventional solar cells. You can read the full research report in the Nature Communications publication.

New design for greater efficiency

But it’s not just the significant cost reduction that sounds attractive. On top of this, the team of scientists wants to use the new type of solar cells to achieve significantly greater efficiency in energy production. This is made possible by the fact that there are cells on both the front and the back. As a result, the panels can absorb light from both sides and thus produce significantly more solar energy. Thanks to the use of nanotubes, the new cells are also extremely thin.

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A tube measures just 2.2 nanometers in diameter. This means that significantly more energy can be generated with the corresponding panels on the same surface area than is the case with previous solar panels. A yield of almost 360 watts per m² should be possible. That is almost twice as much as what average panels are currently capable of. If the technology really does catch on, it would be a major step forward for the renewable energy sector.