A timeline of solar energy
If I were to ask you how efficient a solar cell was, what percentage would you guess? I am no engineer but I thought I understood at least how solar panels worked once they were installed on your roof.
What I didn’t know was that each cell is only around 30% efficient. When the solar cell was first invented by Charles Fritts it had less than a 1% efficiency percentage. That was all the way back in 1883 according to this timeline from solarpower.guide detailing the increase in solar panel efficiency over time. Nearly 71 years in later in 1954 Bell Labs would invent the first silicon solar cell that had an efficiency over 6%.
In 1985 researchers in Australia created the first commercial silicon solar cell with over 20% efficiency. Today that number is just under 40%. In 2019 a group from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory developed a silicon solar cell that reached 39.2% efficiency. In another decade where will we be? Over 50%? How much longer until we reach 100% efficiency and what will that mean for renewable solar energy?
