Re-assessment of net energy production and greenhouse gas emissions avoidance after 40 years of photovoltaics development

Since the 1970s, installed solar photovoltaic capacity has grown tremendously to 230 gigawatt worldwide in 2015, with a growth rate between 1975 and 2015 of 45%. This rapid growth has led to concerns regarding the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of photovoltaics production. We present a review of 40 years of photovoltaics development, analysing the development of energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions associated with photovoltaics production. Here we show strong downward trends of environmental impact of photovoltaics production, following the experience curve law. For every doubling of installed photovoltaic capacity, energy use decreases by 13 and 12% and greenhouse gas footprints by 17 and 24%, for poly- and monocrystalline based photovoltaic systems, respectively. As a result, we show a break-even between the cumulative disadvantages and benefits of photovoltaics, for both energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, occurs between 1997 and 2018, depending on photovoltaic performance and model uncertainties.

While the photovoltaic industry aims to achieve cleaner energy production, it consumes energy and emits greenhouse gases during production and deployment. Here, Louwen et al. show that the industry has likely already reached break-even points for both greenhouse gases emissions and electricity consumption.

Luminescent solar concentrators with fiber geometry

The potential of a fibre luminescent solar concentrator has been explored by means of both analytical and ray-tracing techniques. Coated fibres have been found to be more efficient than homogeneously doped fibres, at low absorption. For practical fibres concentration is predicted to be linear with fibre length. A 1 m long, radius 1 mm, fibre LSC doped with Lumogen Red 305 is predicted to concentrate the AM1.5 g spectrum up to 1100 nm at normal incidence by ~35 x. The collection efficiency under diffuse and direct irradiance in London has been analysed showing that, even under clear sky conditions, in winter the diffuse contribution equals the direct.

Fabrication and spectroscopic studies on highly luminescent CdSe/CdS nanorod polymer composites

Highly luminescent nanocomposites were prepared by incorporating CdSe/CdS core/shell nanorods into different polymer matrices. The resulting nanocomposites show high transparency of up to 93%. A photoluminescence quantum efficiency of 70% was obtained, with an optimum combination of nanorod (0.05 wt %) and at a UV-initiator concentration of 0.1 wt % for poly(lauryl methacrylate). Nanorods tend to agglomerate in cellulose triacetate.

Luminescent Solar Concentrators--a review of recent results

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) generally consist of transparent polymer sheets doped with luminescent species. Incident sunlight is absorbed by the luminescent species and emitted with high quantum efficiency, such that emitted light is trapped in the sheet and travels to the edges where it can be collected by solar cells. LSCs offer potentially lower cost per Wp. This paper reviews results mainly obtained within the framework of the Full-spectrum project. Two modeling approaches are presented, i.e., a thermodynamic and a ray-trace one, as well as experimental results, with a focus on LSC stability.