PV Gap

Ricky Said:

What hypothesis,prediction & test can i come up with for my "how solar cells generate electricity project?

We Answered:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=…

Walter Said:

What determines the amount of electricity a solar cell produces each day?

We Answered:

low and high production of electricity depends on ur solar cell efficiency . the amount of electricity generated depends on rating of ur panel.

Brittany Said:

How much electricity is produced by a solar cell on average in an hour?

We Answered:

Your question is incomplete..... Commonly Solar cell recharge factor is related to its exposed surface area to Sunlight. Please follow the link you will self calculate your self.

solar cell's energy conversion efficiency (?, "eta"), is the percentage of power converted (from absorbed light to electrical energy) and collected, when a solar cell is connected to an electrical circuit. This term is calculated using the ratio of the maximum power point, Pm, divided by the input light irradiance (E, in W/m2) under standard test conditions (STC) and the surface area of the solar cell (Ac in m2).


Follow the link if u really want to know...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell

Alexander Said:

How much electricity does a solar cell produce?

We Answered:

The link below is to the best panel from Sunpower. It's available to the public, I suppose, through installers. You can't order one yourself from the internet or at a store.

You can calculate what you want from there. This panel has an efficiency of 18.5%, which is what happens once you put the cells in a realistic frame under glass. It's really only useful to talk about watts per square foot. Volts and amps are specified for the entire panel, and it would not be possible to tap the voltage off, say, just 1 square foot of a 15-square-foot panel.

Jeffrey Said:

A solar cell farm converts sunlight into electricity. If the solar cell used has an efficiency of 10%....?

We Answered:

needed is 1 000 000 000 watts

since efficiency is 10% each square meter produces 50 watts

1 000 000 000
--------------------- = 2 000 000
50

2 000 000 meters2 i think :S

Dorothy Said:

Article about availability of materials used in making Solar cell produce electricity?

We Answered:

Are you looking for one?


Lots of different materials are used in solar cells. Some use doped silicon (very abundant), the cheapest commercial ones right now use cadmium telluride (CdTe), but we only mine something like 90 tons of Te a year.

Example random articles:
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/News/200…
http://seekingalpha.com/article/54614-fi…
The good thing about CdTe is that you can make it very thin. It takes something like 15g of CdTe to make a square metre of solar panel.


The other big thin film technology right now is copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide, or CIGS. Indium is quite rare and expensive ($400-450/kg iirc):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indium

My lab group are working on alternatives using Zinc instead of Indium. This is much cheaper and more abundant.


'3rd generation' solar cells are ones made from chemical dyes and organic compounds. Afaik there are no major resource shortages for these ones. We have plenty of oil for the needs, and if not we can in principle synthesise it from biological sources.