(Bloomberg) — China’s lead in solar manufacturing now extends to technology that will lower costs and enable clean energy to spread around the world.
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Longi Green Energy Technology Co., the world’s largest solar company by market value, set a record late last year for silicon cell efficiency, a measure of the amount of ‘solar energy that is converted into usable electricity. It’s the first time a Chinese group has held the record, widely considered a benchmark for scientific achievement in the field, and it likely won’t be the last, according to a leading industry researcher.
China is expected to lead solar advances in the coming years, said Martin Green, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, better known as the Father of Modern Photovoltaics. “We are getting to the point where China will dominate the setting of these records,” he said at the SNEC PV Power Expo in Shanghai on Tuesday.
The all-time best for cell efficiency is much more than bragging rights. Generating additional power from the same silicon square will help cement China’s global leadership position in the solar industry, lower the cost of electricity and accelerate the adoption of clean energy as countries race to achieve their net zero goals.
In the decades since the invention of the modern solar cell in 1954 at Bell Labs in New Jersey, the US consistently set efficiency records, Green said. During the 1980s and 1990s, scientists at the University of New South Wales took over, until they were overtaken by Japanese researchers in the 2010s, he said.
Longi’s record cell is 26.8% efficient. The theoretical limit for silicon is 29%, according to Green. But that doesn’t stop companies from pushing harder.
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The chairman of one of Longi’s peers, Zhu Gongshan of GCL Technology Holdings Ltd., told conference delegates that he expects 32 percent efficiency by the end of the decade, combining silicon-based cells with a other material, known as perovskite.
The newspaper of the week
(All Beijing time unless otherwise noted).
Wednesday, May 24
CCTD Weekly Online Conference on Chinese Coal, 3:00 p.m
SNEC Photovoltaic Power Expo in Shanghai, Day 2
Thursday, May 25
Shanghai Futures Exchange Derivatives Forum, Day 1
SNEC Photovoltaic Power Expo in Shanghai, Day 3
Friday, May 26
China iron ore port weekly stocks
Shanghai Stock Exchange Weekly Merchandise Inventory, ~15:30
Shanghai Futures Exchange Derivatives Forum, Day 2
SNEC Photovoltaic Power Expo in Shanghai, Day 4
HOLIDAYS: Hong Kong
Saturday 27 May
Al Filferro
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