By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2009-10-06 05:30
Focus on PV, CCS, nuclear, hydrogen, biomass, and energy storage
In August, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the delivery of $377 million in funding for 46 new Energy Frontier Research Centres. The centres will be hosted by universities, national laboratories, non-profit organisations, and private companies. The research domains that were chosen offer a good sampling of those technologies the US Department of Energy (DOE) sees as potentially important in the energy landscape of the future. The funded projects are focussed on:
- Improving the efficiency of photovoltaic systems; with particular projects dedicated to hybrid inorganic/organic PV cells and nanometre-sized PV cells
- Advanced nuclear techniques
- Carbon capture and geological storage (CCS)
- Hydrogen, including the production of hydrogen as well as hydrogen fuel cells
- Biomass, including energy-rich plants and the conversion of biomass into chemicals and fuels
- Energy storage systems
- Superconductivity (1 project)
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2006-08-10 05:30
Combining the best of both worlds
For solar cells to become competitive with fossil fuel power plants, their power (Watt Peak) per euro must increase by about a factor ten. One of the innovations which may have the potential for reaching this goal is organic-based solar cells. They use low-cost active material which brings down their price. Their power conversion efficiency however is still too low.
At Stanford University, Professors Mark Brongersma, Peter Peumans, and Shanhui Fan are trying to improve the conversion efficiency of organic solar cells by adding metal.
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