What we're doing right
Solar savvy
2nd February 2008
Solar power is the world’s fastest-growing sector in the global energy markets, thanks in large part to new sleek technologies, like thin film solar cells
Solar savvy isn’t just for sunny countries: Half the world’s solar panels are actually installed in Germany. And now scientists from eight British universities are teaming together in one of the largest solar-power projects ever undertaken in the U.K. More than 6-million GBP (about $12-million) will be invested in developing cheaper, more efficient thin-film solar cells.
Photovoltaic solar cells, which convert sunlight into electricity, have always been maligned as expensive (mostly because of the high price of silicon) and inefficient. But the clunky panels of yesterday are being replaced with sleek, new designs able to create more electricity with less – or even no – silicon. Already, companies all over the world are selling solar panels with clever, more efficient arrays of prisms, mirrors and lenses. And thin film solar panels – such as new flexible plastic sheets that can be easily rolled onto any surface (or, theoretically, mounted onto the back of an iPod or cellphone) – are generating excitement because of their low cost and durability.
Solar power, after a long incubation period, is now the world’s fastest-growing sector in the global energy markets. Cheap and efficient new technologies are mushrooming, California is installing a million solar roofs and Ontario – which pays solar-panel owners a premium rate to feed electricity into the grid – signed 145 contracts last year. Now, we just need the other provinces to follow suit.
Published in The Green Report in The Globe and Mail
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