Two-faced solar panels can generate more power at up to 70% less cost
Scientists at the University of Surrey have built a new kind of solar panel with two faces, both of them pretty.
![scientist holds bendy solar cell up to light](/sites/default/files/styles/1200xauto/public/2024-03/Untitled%20design%20%2810%29.png?itok=ZbcwN7Gr)
Their flexible perovskite panels have electrodes made of tiny carbon nanotubes. These can generate more power with greater efficiency and at a cost 70% lower than existing solar panels.
Surrey scientists worked with colleagues at the University of Cambridge, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xidian University, and Zhengzhou University, China. Together, they built a new kind of two-faced panel (scientists prefer the term 'bifacial'). They used single-walled carbon nanotubes as both front and back electrodes.
These tubes are just 2.2 nanometres across. That is slightly thinner than a strand of human DNA. A piece of paper is thicker than 45,000 nanotubes stacked on top of each other.
![solar cell held up in lab](/sites/default/files/styles/1200xauto/public/2024-03/Untitled%20design%20%2811%29.png?itok=z0jiBg4s)
The panels could generate over 36 mW per square centimetre – and the back panel produced nearly 97% of the power that the front panel did. That compares to 75-95% for most bifacial panels currently on the market.
The study is published in the journal Nature.
The research helps promote the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 7 (affordable and clean energy), 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure) and 13 (climate action).