Photovoltaic energy density

Are utility-scale photovoltaic plants affecting land-use impacts?

Abstract—The rapid deployment of large numbers of utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) plants in the United States, combined with heightened expectations of future deployment, has raised concerns about land requirements and associated land-use impacts.

Is there a limit to light-to-electrical power conversion efficiency of single-junction solar cells?

However, there is an upper limit to the light-to-electrical power conversion efficiency (PCE, which is the ratio between the incident solar photon energy and the electrical energy output) of single-junction solar cells that is determined by the Shockley–Queisser (SQ) model and formalism 1.

How to calculate the EU associated with the different organic photovoltaics?

The EU associated with the different organic photovoltaics can be calculated from the plots (see Urbach energy determination in OPVs section in the Supplementary Information and Supplementary Fig. 11).

How much CO2 does solar energy emit per kWh?

Solar energy in India involves significantly less land cover change per unit of output (see Fig. 2), and estimated LUC emissions per kWh are below 12 g of CO 2 for all scenarios. In Japan and South-Korea, LUC emissions related to the expansion of solar energy are 11 to 35 g of CO 2 per kWh.

Why does solar penetration rate increase with higher penetration rates?

This ratio increases with higher penetration rates, due to the satiation of the potential to generate solar energy on rooftops (see also Figure S12 in the SM) in combination with the decreasing marginal returns for land-based solar energy.

How efficient is a silicon heterojunction solar cell?

Prog. Photovolt. 21, 827–837 (2013). Yoshikawa, K. et al. Silicon heterojunction solar cell with interdigitated back contacts for a photoconversion efficiency over 26%. Nat. Energy 2, 17032 (2017). This study presents an efficient (PCE = 26.6%) c-Si solar cell with the IBC–SHJ architecture.