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

Battery boom drives Bangladesh lead poisoning epidemic

Published

1 day ago

April 1, 2025

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Battery boom drives Bangladesh lead poisoning epidemic

By Philippe ALFROY

Mirzapur, Bangladesh (AFP) April 1, 2025

Bangladeshi Junayed Akter is 12 years old but the toxic lead coursing through his veins has left him with the diminutive stature of someone several years younger.

Akter is one of 35 million children — around 60 percent of all children in the South Asian nation — who have dangerously high levels of lead exposure.

The causes are varied, but his mother blames his maladies on a since-shuttered factory that hastily scrapped and recycled old vehicle batteries for profit, in the process poisoning the air and the earth of his small village.

“It would start at night, and the whole area would be filled with smoke. You could smell this particular odour when you breathed,” Bithi Akter told AFP.

“The fruit no longer grew during the season. One day, we even found two dead cows at my aunt’s house.”

Medical tests showed Junayed’s blood had twice the level of lead deemed by the World Health Organization to cause serious, and likely irreversible, mental impairment in young children.

“From the second grade onward, he didn’t want to listen to us anymore, he didn’t want to go to school,” Bithi said, as her son sat next to her while gazing blankly out at the courtyard of their home.

“He cried all the time too.”

Lead poisoning is not a new phenomenon in Bangladesh, and the causes are manifold.

They include the heavy metal’s widespread and continued use in paint, in defiance of a government ban, and its use as an adulterant in turmeric spice powder to improve its colour and perceived quality.

A great many cases are blamed on informal battery recycling factories that have proliferated around the country in response to rising demand.

Children exposed to dangerous levels of lead risk decreased intelligence and cognitive performance, anaemia, stunted growth and lifelong neurological disorders.

The factory in the Akter family’s village closed after sustained complaints from the community.

But environmental watchdog Pure Earth believes there could be 265 such sites elsewhere in the country.

“They break down old batteries, remove the lead and melt it down to make new ones,” Pure Earth’s Mitali Das told AFP.

“They do all this in the open air,” she added. “The toxic fumes and acidic water produced during the operation pollute the air, soil and water.”

– ‘They’ve killed our village’ –

In Fulbaria, a village that sits a few hours’ drive north of the capital Dhaka, operations at another battery recycling factory owned by a Chinese company are in full swing.

On one side are verdant paddy fields. On the other, a pipe spews murky water into a brackish pool bordered by dead lands, caked with thick orange mud.

“As a child, I used to bring food to my father when he was in the fields. The landscape was magnificent, green, the water was clear,” engineer and local resident Rakib Hasan, 34, told AFP.

“You see what it looks like now. It’s dead, forever,” he added. “They’ve killed our village.”

Hasan complained about the factory’s pollution, prompting a judge to declare it illegal and order the power be shut off — a decision later reversed by the country’s supreme court.

“The factory bought off the local authorities,” Hasan said. “Our country is poor, many people are corrupt.”

Neither the company nor the Chinese embassy in Dhaka responded to AFP’s requests for comment on the factory’s operations.

Syeda Rizwana Hasan, who helms Bangladesh’s environment ministry, declined to comment on the case because it was still before the courts.

“We regularly conduct operations against the illegal production and recycling of electric batteries,” she said.

“But these efforts are often insufficient given the scale of the phenomenon.”

– ‘Unaware of the dangers’ –

Informal battery recycling is a booming business in Bangladesh.

It is driven largely by the mass electrification of rickshaws — a formerly pedal-powered means of conveyance popular in both big cities and rural towns.

More than four million rickshaws are found on Bangladeshi roads and authorities estimate the market for fitting them all with electric motors and batteries at around $870 million.

“It’s the downside of going all-electric,” said Maya Vandenant of the UN children’s agency, which is pushing a strategy to clean up the industry with tighter regulations and tax incentives.

“Most people are unaware of the dangers,” she said, adding that the public health impacts are forecast to be a 6.9 percent dent to the national economy.

Muhammad Anwar Sadat of Bangladesh’s health ministry warned that the country could not afford to ignore the scale of the problem.

“If we do nothing,” he told AFP, “the number of people affected will multiply three or fourfold in the next two years.”

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Solar Energy

Modi to kick off construction of India-Sri Lanka solar plant

Published

3 days ago

March 30, 2025

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Modi to kick off construction of India-Sri Lanka solar plant

by AFP Staff Writers

New Delhi (AFP) Mar 28, 2025

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the construction of a long-delayed solar power project during his upcoming visit to Sri Lanka, an official said on Friday.

Vikram Misri, the secretary of India’s foreign ministry, said Modi and Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake will witness a virtual groundbreaking ceremony for their joint-venture solar power project in the island’s northeast on April 5.

The proposed 120-megawatt venture in the northeastern coastal district of Trincomalee has stalled for years, but New Delhi backed it as a joint project between the neighbouring nations.

“This, in many senses, is going to be a milestone in the bilateral partnership,” Misri told reporters in New Delhi.

“They will together dedicate several projects that are being built with Indian assistance in Sri Lanka and will also witness the exchange of several MoUs pertaining to energy connectivity, digitisation, defence, health, and multisectoral grant assistance.”

The pair will watch the virtual groundbreaking from Sri Lankan capital Colombo. The costs of the project were not immediately available.

The groundbreaking, a day before Modi concludes his two-night visit to Sri Lanka, comes as Colombo grapples with the competing interests of its powerful northern neighbour and China, its largest lender.

Modi will be the first foreign head of government to visit the island nation under the new administration of leftist Dissanayake. He flies into Colombo on April 4 after attending a regional conference in Thailand.

Dissanayake’s first foreign visit after his election last year was to New Delhi in December.

Sri Lankan officials in Colombo said Modi and Dissanayake will travel to the northern Buddhist pilgrimage city of Anuradhapura on April 6.

Dissanayake travelled to Beijing in January, underscoring Sri Lanka’s delicate balancing act in maintaining ties with the two regional rivals.

New Delhi has been concerned about China’s growing influence in Sri Lanka, which it considers to be within its sphere of geopolitical influence.

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Solar Energy

Optical advances offer boost to next-generation solar module designs

Published

3 days ago

March 30, 2025

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Optical advances offer boost to next-generation solar module designs

by Robert Schreiber

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Mar 30, 2025

In 2023, solar photovoltaic (PV) systems accounted for over 5 percent of global electricity output, with installed capacity doubling roughly every two to three years. Optical technologies are now emerging as key enablers to further enhance module efficiency and enable new applications, including aesthetically tailored solar panels for building facades. A new expert-driven report, coordinated by Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) scientists Prof. Christiane Becker and Dr. Klaus Jager, offers a detailed analysis of the most promising innovations in this area.

Solar photovoltaics have become one of the most affordable sources of electricity worldwide. As of November 2024, global PV installations surpassed two terawatts, underscoring the rapid pace of expansion and cost decline.

Contributions from 22 leading research institutions

“At a recent workshop, we discussed how the optics community can contribute to the further growth of photovoltaics,” said Prof. Christiane Becker, who leads the Solar Energy Optics Department at HZB. Along with Dr. Klaus Jager, she brought together a team of 27 experts from 22 institutions across nine countries to produce a wide-ranging review of emerging PV and optical technologies.

Breakthrough optical concepts

Beginning with a comprehensive look at current terawatt-scale PV deployment, the report identifies critical areas where optical strategies can make significant contributions. “We have also identified a number of optical concepts that are currently only on the threshold of economic viability, but which hold the most promise for advancing PV technology,” said Becker. Key areas include multi-junction solar cells, which offer the highest efficiencies among all PV technologies and could help reduce the levelized cost of energy.

Sustainability and aesthetics

The review also emphasizes the importance of environmentally responsible manufacturing and the reduced use of scarce materials through eco-design approaches. Another highlighted innovation is the development of colored PV modules suitable for integration into building architecture. “Especially in cities, we need to use facades and other surfaces too for solar energy conversion, and of course, it does matter how the PV modules look. Such innovative solar modules allow sophisticated aesthetic solutions,” said Becker.

Becker and Jager believe the review will serve not only as a valuable resource for researchers but also for funding bodies and policy strategists seeking to accelerate the deployment of advanced solar technologies.

Research Report:Optics for Terawatt-Scale Photovoltaics: Review and Perspectives