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Bender • yesterday at 4:00 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

The price coming down is great, more accessibility to more people. Have there been any significant breakthroughs in overall average efficiency/conversion? e.g. 30%+ Asking for my own selfish needs as I am in a place with reduce sunlight availability.


Replies

mabbo • yesterday at 4:21 PM

It really comes down to overcoming the Shockley-Queisser limit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley%E2%80%93Queisser_limi...

You can get around it with multi-layer, but each layer adds diminishing returns on improvements, while the cost keeps increasing.

The best way to handle places with less solar irradiance is to have more panels. The cost per panel keeps dropping, so the economics keep improving in that way.

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