The document discusses advancements in solar cell technology, including a new design featuring nanopillars that absorbs 99% of visible light, and innovations in solar-powered vehicles, such as a car that uses solar batteries for nighttime energy and a solar-powered aircraft that flew continuously for over 26 hours. It also highlights a sticker that can boost solar panel efficiency by 10% and the potential of space-based solar technologies that could capture up to 90% of sunlight. Lastly, it mentions manufacturing breakthroughs with magnesium chloride for more efficient and cheaper solar panels, as well as inventory data for solar capacity installations in Pakistan.

1. Name Qaisar Maqbool
Class BS (H)
Roll No 5714
Semester 8th
Seminar Topic
Advancement in solar cells
GC, university Faisalabad

7. The new material consists of an array of nanopillars
that are narrow at the top and thicker at the bottom.
The narrow tops allow light to penetrate the array
without reflecting off. The thicker bottom absorbs
light so that it can be converted into electricity.
The design absorbs 99 percent of visible light,
compared to the 85 percent absorbed by an earlier
design in which the nanopillars were the same
thickness along their entire length.
An ordinary flat film of the material would absorb
only 15 percent of the light.

8. Car-Mounted Solar
 Japanese car manufacturing company
has introduced a car which is based
on solar energy.
 During the day it will work because of
the suns light but problem for night
has been overcomed by using solar
batteries which will store energy and
which can be later used.
 Now researchers are going to prepare
low cost solar cars.
Solar Toyota prius

9. single-pilot aircraft
 Swiss researchers yesterday marked a
major milestone in the development of a
solar-powered, single-pilot aircraft that
they hope will eventually circumnavigate
the globe. They kept their craft aloft
through an entire night on stored solar
energy.
 In the wake of the event, the pilot, André
Borschberg–CEO and cofounder of the
Solar Impulse project–declared:
 “I have just flown more than 26 hours
without using a drop of fuel and without
causing any pollution!” The plane took
off from a Swiss airbase early
Wednesday and landed there at dawn
Thursday.

10. A Sticker Makes Solar Panels Work
Better
 The power output of solar panels can
be boosted by 10 percent just by
applying a big transparent sticker to
the front.
 The sticker is a polymer film
embossed with microstructures that
bend incoming sunlight. The result:
the active materials in the panels
absorb more light, and convert more of
it into electricity.
Main advantage
 The technology is cheap and could
lower the cost per watt of solar power

12. Space Based Solar
 Scientists are resurrecting a technology
that was first tested over forty years ago in
which space-based satellites capture
sunlight and convert it into microwave
energy that is then beamed back to earth.
 This type of technology promises to
capture significant more amount of
sunlight (nearly ninety percent) since
satellites can be positioned to optimize
light capture round the clock.
 India, China and Japan are investing
heavily in these technologies right now.

13. Advances in Solar Cell
Manufacturing
 Magnesium Chloride. While over ninety
percent of solar panels on the market today
are comprised of silicon semiconductors,
the key ingredient to converting sunlight
into electricity
 Many believe the next generation of solar
panels will be made of a thin film
technology that uses narrow coatings of
cadmium telluride in solar cells - this
technology promises to be a much cheaper
and more efficient way to engage the
photovoltaic process.

14.  One major obstacle for cadmium telluride thin film cells is
that they become highly unstable during the manufacturing
process, which currently uses cadmium chloride.
 Magnesium chloride in replace of cadmium chloride.
Magnesium chloride is recovered from seawater, an
abundant resource, which makes the resource very low
cost, as well as non-toxic.
 Replacing the manufacturing process with this material
promises to increase the efficiency of these solar cells
from two percent to up to fifteen percent

15. Low-Cost Solar
 Solar cells can produce 10 times more electricity per
gram of silicon thanks to this system, which
concentrates sunlight on the cells with the help of
parabolic troughs and a tracking system that keeps
them pointed at the sun.
 Concentrated sunlight ordinarily causes solar cells to
overheat, impairing their performance, but this
system uses heat sinks and convection to prevent
that problem. The reflective troughs, a type already
used in solar thermal plants that concentrate sunlight
to make steam and drive turbines, can be made in
high volume at low prices.

16. Installations in Megawatts In
Pakistan
YEAR CUMULATIVELY
CAPACITY
ADDED
CAPACITY
2015 400 ---
2016 1000 600

18. Electricity – total installed capacity in Pakistan : 23,928 MW (2015)
Source
Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB). Retrieved 3 February 2017.