Solar technology always seems like one of those things that's just so obvious and obtainable. If only the huge number of technical problems could be solved. Then we could have a clean and effectively limitless source of power. And yet progress in the field seems glacially slow. There are still immense problems to over come with regards to efficiency, cost and energy storage.
Today on Science News is a story about a team that has managed to demonstrate a self assembling and self repairing solar cell. This new type of cell could provide for a big boost to overcoming some of the major hurdles in solar energy technology. The cells behave much like plant cells in nature. Because UV radiation and photosynthesis by products are so damaging. Plant cells converting light to energy are constantly damaged and need to be repaired or replaced. In current solar technology the answer to the damaging UV rays has been to make solar cells more resistant to the damage. But the draw backs of this approach are reduced efficiency, increased cost and a limited effective life time. This new approach could lead to solar technology with much higher efficiency, that's cheaper and has effectively an unlimited lifetime.
If solar technology could be made more cost effective it's use could take off. It wouldn't require that much of a leap before we could have solar cells on the roofs of cars and houses. This would be of great advantage to New Zealand. Particularly in areas with high sunshine hours like Hawles' bay and Nelson. The efficiency of the technology may even be able to grow to the point where it could generate sufficient energy even on an overcast day. Of course this is all just speculation at this stage. It still has to be seen if this new technology can overcome its own challenges. But I'm hopeful.
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