Solar Energy

Air Force awards UToledo $12.5 million to develop space-based solar energy sheets

Published

4 years ago

February 17, 2021

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Air Force awards UToledo .5 million to develop space-based solar energy sheets

The military is adding fuel to the momentum of physicists at The University of Toledo who are advancing new frontiers in thin-film, highly efficient, low-cost photovoltaic technology to ensure a clean energy future.

The U.S. Air Force awarded UToledo $12.5 million to develop photovoltaic energy sheets that would live in space and harvest solar energy to transmit power wirelessly to Earth-based receivers or to other orbital or aerial instrumentation, such as communications satellites.

UToledo physicists will develop flexible solar cell sheets, each roughly the size of a piece of paper, that can be assembled and interconnected into much larger structures.

Although UToledo’s focus does not include engineering the interconnected arrays, the vision is potentially massive: one space-based solar array could include tens of millions of sheets and extend to sizes as large as a square mile – that’s more than three quarters the size of UToledo Main Campus. One array at this size could generate about 800 megawatts of electrical power – just shy of the power produced by the Davis Besse power plant between Toledo and Cleveland.

“”With 37% stronger sunlight above the atmosphere than on a typical sunny day here on Earth’s surface, orbital solar arrays offer a critical opportunity to harness renewable energy, achieve sustainability goals and provide strategic power for a wide range of orbital and airborne technologies,” said Dr. Randall Ellingson, professor in the UToledo Department of Physics and Astronomy and member of the UToledo Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization who will lead the five-year project.

“”This $12.5 million award recognizes our own University of Toledo as a national leader in solar cell technologies and in photovoltaic energy research,” said Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur. “UToledo’s broad partnerships with industry, government and academia represent the best of us and will help cement our region as a player for generations to come in solar manufacturing, research and development.”

Building on UToledo’s more than 30-year history advancing solar technology to power the world using clean energy, the physicists will continue developing the material science and photovoltaic technologies that are highly efficient, lightweight and durable in an outer-space environment.

They’re building tandem solar cells – two different solar cells stacked on top of each other that more efficiently harvest the sun’s spectrum – on very thin, flexible supporting materials.

“”We have had great success accelerating the performance of solar cells and drawing record levels of power from the same amount of sunlight using the tandem technique with what are called perovskites,” Ellingson said.

Perovskites are compound materials with a special crystal structure formed through chemistry.

The team will sandwich a variety of combinations of solar cells, including perovskites, silicon, cadmium telluride and copper indium gallium selenide, to raise the ceiling on what is achievable.

At the same time, the team will explore lightweight, flexible supporting material to create the large solar cell sheets. Those materials also need to be resilient, ultra-thin and tolerant to high and low temperatures. Semitransparent and very thin ceramic, plastics and glass are under consideration.

“Professor Ellingson and his team have demonstrated their ability to provide the Air Force with outstanding results over the years and the University is pleased that Representative Kaptur prioritizes projects that both advance the nation’s leadership in cutting-edge solar energy technology and provide the Department of Defense with the highest level of support from University research,” said Dr. Frank Calzonetti, UToledo vice president of research.

In 2019 the U.S. Air Force awarded Ellingson’s team $7.4 million to develop solar technology to power space vehicles using sunlight.

“”The Air Force has demanding specifications for its spaced-based power systems, and the advances being made in thin-film photovoltaics at UToledo coupled with our new photovoltaic sheets concept provide an avenue to meet them,” said Dr. Michael Heben, UToledo professor of physics and McMaster endowed chair. “The faculty and staff at UToledo’s Wright Center for Photovoltaics are proud to receive this award and excited about the challenge.”

In 2019 the U.S. Department of Energy awarded UToledo $4.5 million to develop the next-generation solar panel by bringing a new, ultra-high efficiency material to the consumer market. As part of the project, Dr. Yanfa Yan, UToledo professor of physics, is working with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and First Solar to develop industrially relevant methods for both the fabrication and performance prediction of low-cost, efficient and stable perovskite thin-film PV modules.

Also in 2019 UToledo was part of a $3.9 million award led by Colorado State University to collaborate with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, First Solar and the University of Illinois at Chicago on a U.S. Department of Energy-funded project to improve the voltage and power produced by cadmium-telluride-based solar cells.

UToledo’s Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization is a founding member of an organization called the U.S. Manufacturing of Advanced Perovskites Consortium, which is focused on moving a breakthrough new technology out of the lab and into the marketplace to enhance economic and national security. Partners include the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.; Washington Clean Energy Testbeds at the University of Washington; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and six domestic companies that are working to commercialize the technology.

The University created the Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization in January 2007 with an $18.6 million award from the Ohio Department of Development in response to a proposal led by Dr. Robert Collins, Distinguished University Professor and NEG Endowed Chair of Silicate and Materials Science. Matching contributions of $30 million from federal agencies, universities and industrial partners helped to launch the center, which works to strengthen the photovoltaics and manufacturing base in Ohio through materials and design innovation.

“Solar electricity now competes economically with fossil-fueled and nuclear electricity while avoiding significant atmospheric carbon emissions which drive climate change,” Ellingson said.

“UToledo has assisted in driving down the cost of solar,” Heben said. “Over the past 15 years the cost of solar has been reduced by a factor of 10, while the amount of solar annually deployed has grown by a factor of 100, currently amounting to about 2% of the U.S. electricity supply. Importantly, the transition to clean solar electricity that is occurring also is creating tremendous new job growth opportunities in many parts of our economy.”

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Solar Energy

China to further shrink renewables subsidies in market reform push

Published

3 days ago

February 13, 2025

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China to further shrink renewables subsidies in market reform push

by AFP Staff Writers

Shanghai (AFP) Feb 9, 2025

China’s top economic planner said on Sunday it would reduce some renewable energy subsidies in reforms intended to open the booming sector to market forces.

China has sought to scale back government support for renewable energy companies in recent years as the sector reaches critical mass.

It installed a record amount of renewable energy last year and has already surpassed a target to have at least 1,200 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity installed by 2030.

New clean energy projects completed after June 1 must sell electricity at rates determined by the market rather than at preferential rates previously used to support China’s energy transition, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a statement.

The NDRC urged energy producers to “push forward clean energy’s participation in market transactions”.

The commission also said it “encourages electricity providers and electricity buyers to sign multi-year purchase agreements and pre-emptively manage market risks”.

Beijing invested more than $50 billion in new solar supply capacity from 2011 to 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.

It has built almost twice as much wind and solar capacity as every other country combined, according to research published last year.

However, China’s grid is struggling to keep up.

Renewable supply is increasingly being blocked to prevent the grid from becoming overwhelmed, a process known as curtailment.

Beijing has rolled out a series of measures over the past decade aimed at weaning renewable energy providers off state financial support.

It ended subsidies for new solar power stations and onshore wind power projects in 2021.

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Solar Energy

Scientists Probe Declining Earbud Battery Longevity

Published

2 weeks ago

February 5, 2025

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Scientists Probe Declining Earbud Battery Longevity

by Clarence Oxford

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Feb 05, 2025

Have you ever noticed how electronic devices, including wireless earbuds, seem to lose battery capacity faster the longer you use them? An international research team from The University of Texas at Austin set out to examine this familiar issue, known as battery degradation, by focusing on the earbuds that many people rely on daily. Through a series of x-ray, infrared, and other imaging approaches, the researchers investigated the hidden complexities behind these tiny devices and revealed why their battery life declines over time.

“This started with my personal headphones; I only wear the right one, and I found that after two years, the left earbud had a much longer battery life,” said Yijin Liu, an associate professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, who led the new research published in Advanced Materials. “So, we decided to look into it and see what we could find.”

Their analysis showed that crucial earbud features – like the Bluetooth antenna, microphones, and circuits – compete with the battery in a very confined space, producing a microenvironment that is less than ideal. This situation results in a temperature gradient that damages the battery over time, with different sections of the cell experiencing variable temperatures.

Real-world factors also complicate matters. Frequent changes in climate, shifts in air quality, and a host of other environmental variables challenge the battery’s resilience. While cells are generally designed to endure harsh conditions, constant fluctuations can take their toll.

These discoveries highlight the importance of considering how batteries interact with devices such as phones, laptops, and even electric vehicles. Packaging solutions, strategic design decisions, and adaptations for user habits may all play a role in extending battery performance.

“Using devices differently changes how the battery behaves and performs,” said Guannan Qian, the first author of this paper and a postdoctoral researcher in Liu’s lab. “They could be exposed to different temperatures; one person has different charging habits than another; and every electric vehicle owner has their own driving style. This all matters.”

In conducting this study, Liu and his team worked closely with UT’s Fire Research Group, led by mechanical engineer Ofodike Ezekoye. They paired infrared imaging methods with their in-house x-ray technology at UT Austin and Sigray Inc. To expand their scope, they then teamed up with some of the world’s most advanced x-ray facilities.

Their collaborators included researchers from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, Brookhaven National Laboratory’s National Synchrotron Light Source II, Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source, and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France. These partnerships allowed them to observe battery behavior under more authentic operating conditions.

“Most of the time, in the lab, we’re looking at either pristine and stable conditions or extremes,” said Xiaojing Huang, a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. “As we discover and develop new types of batteries, we must understand the differences between lab conditions and the unpredictability of the real world and react accordingly. X-ray imaging can offer valuable insights for this.”

Looking ahead, Liu says his team will continue analyzing battery performance in the settings people experience every day. They plan to expand their approach to larger batteries, such as those in smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles, to learn more about their degradation patterns.

Research Report:In-device Battery Failure Analysis

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Solar Energy

Quantum factors elevate plant energy transport efficiency

Published

2 weeks ago

February 5, 2025

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Quantum factors elevate plant energy transport efficiency

by Robert Schreiber

Munich, Germany (SPX) Feb 05, 2025

For countless engineers, converting sunlight into easily stored chemical energy stands as an enduring goal. Yet nature perfected this challenge billions of years ago. A recent study reveals that quantum mechanics, once thought to be limited to physics, is also essential for key biological processes.

Green plants and other photosynthetic organisms draw on quantum mechanical mechanisms to capture the sun’s energy. According to Prof. Jurgen Hauer: “When light is absorbed in a leaf, for example, the electronic excitation energy is distributed over several states of each excited chlorophyll molecule; this is called a superposition of excited states. It is the first stage of an almost loss-free energy transfer within and between the molecules and makes the efficient onward transport of solar energy possible. Quantum mechanics is therefore central to understanding the first steps of energy transfer and charge separation.”

Classical physics alone cannot completely describe how this phenomenon unfolds throughout green plants and in certain photosynthetic bacteria. Although the exact details remain only partly understood, Prof. Hauer and first author Erika Keil consider their new findings an important step toward uncovering how chlorophyll, the pigment behind leaf coloration, functions. Applying these insights to engineered photosynthesis devices could unlock unprecedented solar energy conversion efficiencies for both power production and photochemical applications.

In their investigation, the researchers focused on two portions of the light spectrum absorbed by chlorophyll: the low-energy Q band (yellow to red) and the high-energy B band (blue to green). In the Q region, two electronic states are quantum mechanically coupled, promoting virtually loss-free energy movement. The system subsequently relaxes via “cooling”, i.e. by releasing energy in the form of heat. These observations demonstrate that quantum mechanical processes can play a major role in shaping key biological functions.

Research Report:Reassessing the role and lifetime of Qx in the energy transfer dynamics of chlorophyll a