OT Solar cells

There would seem to be plenty of headroom for improving solar cell efficiency, by having multiple layers for example. A single layer of silicon photovoltaic has a maximum theoretical efficiency of only 32%, but an infinite number of layers would have a theoretical efficiency limit of nearly 87%.

Lots more here

Sorry, site was oilprice.com.

Its a difficult one really. Undoubtedly you can get power from a cloudy day, or some of these solar powered watches etc would not work, but I still feel that weather and night and day are their main problem. It all boils down to efficient storage of electricity so it can be used when needed. We have a long way to go in this field I fear. Brian

Its worse than you fear..

say we wanted to run the UK on solar.. on a cloudy day you get maybe 5% of the peak output so you need 20 times as much solar plant to guaranty you can generate enough energy even if you can store it overnight. Of course if you can store say 50 times as much as you need overnight you might get away with less panels if we don't have a lot of cloudy days. But the figures for a guaranteed supply are ridiculous both in terms of cash and in environmental damage.

How about installing the solar panels in hot sunny countries like spain and/or greece and installing a few extention leads into the UK...... Oh forgot we're gonna start leaving the EU on wednesday...

Then how about another country like africa or if we installed the panels in the artic we could use them to provide shade for the ice therefore less chance of it melting ;-)

Been suggested, and abandoned. Desertec is the name to Google for. A pipe dream, with something rather exotic and probably illegal in the pipe bowl!

As usual it's nothing to do with brexit. If the Spanish could generate volts for delivery at Lands End at a competitive price they'd do it, whether we're in the EU or not.

An extension lead even from Northern Spain even to say Truro would be quite long, care to cost it? One from Greece would be an even bigger joke.

You'll be suggesting panels in the Libyan desert next.

the proposed one from Iceland to Scotland (Icelink) is even longer - 1000km

yes, spend 10 times as much to get almost twice the output.

Why not - gasp - use two cells side by side?

Are the Spanish queuing up to provide it then?

But the available area for solar panels in the UK is limited by its coastline.

Commercial solar panels are between 11% and 14% efficient. There is supposed to be more efficient one sin the pipeline.