[LINK] Two links on a potential solar power renaissance

[rfmcdonald]

Science Daily shared the news that a team of Australian researchers were able to design solar cells which could convert sunlight to electricity at 40% efficiency.

"This is the highest efficiency ever reported for sunlight conversion into electricity," UNSW Scientia Professor and Director of the Advanced Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP) Professor Martin Green said.

"We used commercial solar cells, but in a new way, so these efficiency improvements are readily accessible to the solar industry," added Dr Mark Keevers, the UNSW solar scientist who managed the project.

The 40% efficiency milestone is the latest in a long line of achievements by UNSW solar researchers spanning four decades. These include the first photovoltaic system to convert sunlight to electricity with over 20% efficiency in 1989, with the new result doubling this performance.

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Power towers are being developed by Australian company, RayGen Resources, which provided design and technical support for the high efficiency prototype. Another partner in the research was Spectrolab, a US-based company that provided some of the cells used in the project.

A key part of the prototype's design is the use of a custom optical bandpass filter to capture sunlight that is normally wasted by commercial solar cells on towers and convert it to electricity at a higher efficiency than the solar cells themselves ever could.

A former solar energy commissioner in Spain, Vicente Lopez-Ibor Mayor, meanwhile, contributed an essay to Al Jazeera arguing that the Middle East, with its energy-export infrastructure and solar energy potential, could profit enormously from the technology.

The rise of shale has posed a rare challenge to Middle Eastern oil, culminating in a global oil price war and moving OPEC members to slash profits to retain market share. But at a time when OPEC's hegemony over the oil markets has been challenged, let us not forget there is another abundant natural energy resource the Middle East possesses - the sun.

The abundance of sunlight (and therefore solar power) offers Middle Eastern energy producers an opportunity to achieve first-move advantage in a market that appears to be the longer-term future of energy. In light of recent instability in oil markets, the importance of alternative renewable energies, particularly solar, has become all the more pronounced. The drop in oil prices has precipitated an efficiency rush in energy production in all producer nations. In the US, oil producers are leaving no stone unturned in the hunt to become as efficient and sustainable as possible.

[. . . T]he possibilities associated with harnessing Middle Eastern solar energy could be a game-changer. Solar is becoming much cheaper to invest in, and now has an established and ever improving infrastructure. Substantial investment in solar will act as a shield for the region's more valued commodity; oil. Saudi Arabia alone for example, could have made $43.8bn in additional oil revenue in 2013 were it not for its spiralling domestic consumption.

The possibilities associated with harnessing Middle Eastern solar energy could be a game-changer. Solar is becoming much cheaper to invest in, and now has an established and ever improving infrastructure.

It also would have acted as a massive stimulus to the country's finances. Earlier this year, Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, announced it would be making solar energy investments across the country in an attempt to diversify the country's energy supplies. It is also expected to conserve the country's oil resources primarily for export.