Carbon Solar Panels May be Coming to a Wall Near You

Give this one 10 years or so before the core technology improves and ways to impregnate it into a variety of materials are developed, but these all-carbon Solar cells do present a variety of new ways to create surfaces that are capable of generating electricity from Sun power. Carbon is abundant and incredibly tough, characteristics that provide a great foundation for a low-cost versatile solar cell. Work remains to be done on the efficiency of the carbon-based cells which right now are only capable of converting around 1% of the energy in the light into electricity(although tests have been done on advanced cell versions that are reaching near the 5% level of efficiency). To be commercially viable, the light conversion efficiency rate needs to be around 10%. Read more