Monday, June 04, 2007

The road to EV future: photovoltaic

Part of the necessary evolution for future Electric Vehicles is related to batteries. But of course, another important issue is generating electricity from renewable sources. Recently scientists from a Boeing subsidiary (Spectrolab) claimed to have developed a new type of photovoltaic cell that has surpassed an energy conversion efficiency of 40% for the first time. Instead of the usual single-junction silicon cells, Spectrolab scientists have fabricated multi-junction cells with advantage in absorbing more of the frequencies that are available in sunlight. Developments in photovoltaic cells have been regularly in the news and as soon as this and other companies (many located in Silicon Valley) start dealing with development and cost reduction we will have confidence in the availability of cost-effective solar energy for charging auto batteries.

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