The future trends in solar cells technology

Solar cells technology requires innovations in order to meet the increasing demands of the market for renewable energy. The traditional photovoltaic cells have many disadvantages, such as high price, low efficiency, decreasing of efficiency with time, fragility and inconvenient installation. Therefore it is necessary to make new innovations in solar technology that will bring higher efficiency and easier usage of solar power. 

Some of the most important innovations in solar technology include perovskite solar cells, plasmoelectric solar cells, spray on solar cells and transparent solar cells. 

Perovskites 

Perovskites are special types of minerals that have strong benefits in solar power harvesting. Perovskite can be used as absorber in solar cells. It can be easily combined with photovoltaic solar cells to increase their effectiveness. Perovskites still have a long way to go, since their application is still in experimental phase. But it is obvious that the efficiency of perovskite solar cells is gradually increasing with new innovations and experiments. 

Plasmoelectric solar cells

Plasmoelectric effect is related to plasmonic effect on metallic surface where potential is created as a result of light that reaches the nanoplasmonic clusters. Plasmoelectric cells will bring boost to harvesting of solar powers in high range, including infrared part of solar spectrum. 

Spray on solar cells

Spray on solar cells combine perovskites and photovoltaic effect in an easy spray on application. This is very interesting because you don't need to build solar panels and you can just spray the solar cells directly on any desired surface. You could imagine how it would be easy to spray solar cells on roofs, walls and other parts of the building and make the building energy sustainable. 

Transparent solar cells

Instead of traditional dark gray or black photovoltaic solar cells, the future solar cells should be transparent. It is well known that black is absorbing the visible part of solar radiation. But the technology with organic molecules will give alternative to classical photovoltaic cells. The transparent solar panels will absorb both ultraviolet and infrared part of the solar spectrum and the efficiency will be satisfactory. We could surely expect that the transparent solar panels will replace the traditional windows and generate electricity for many buildings.