Question

1. Short description of your assigned challenge
2. Describe the innovation you researched to address the challenge
3. The result (what did it prove?)
4. How/Why it impacts or supports the challenge

the challenge is "make Solar energy economical"

Answer 1

For most parts of history, a lot of research has been done on converting solar energy into electricity. Since the cost of solar energy was high they were used only in special applications like in space technology. Recently innovation in the field of solar energy harnessing has led to some developments and has made solar energy economical. This was because of the entry of thin film solar cells. With this the new aim has become to increase efficieny of solar enery while keeping the manufacturing costs low.

The reasearch for innovation in this area is based on the paper "Innovation Case Study-Photovoltaics(October 2006)" by Samuella Bassi and "Nanomaterials in Solar Cells(2015)" by Razika Tala-Ighil.

This former paper says that innovation being a diificult parameter to quantify like the number of relevant patents, number of scientists working in the fiels, comapny registerations etc. This paper measures innovation in terms of cost reduction.Cost variations or reductions is an indicator of whether solar energy is competitive with other energy forms. The paper says that cost reductions can be achieved by reducing manufacturing costs or by increasing module efficiency.The paper found that solar energy has a higher relative cost but a steeper learning curve. The finding was that with more investment in this, can result in the technology progressing faster than others.Future models will need to consider into account factors, such as R&D, knowledge spillovers, and market dynamics to give a more realistic picture for investments.

The second paper on Nanomaterials in Solar Cells says that reducing costs and improving conversion efficiency is the way to make PV energy cometitive and better than fossil energies. Nanoltechnology seems to be the way to build PV cells whether organic or inorganic.The paper says that since the conversion efficiency obtained by conventional solar cells is relatively high compared to nanomaterial-based solar cells,they remain more attractive because of their low manufacturing cost and potential wide implementation in people’s everyday life.

We can say the challenge benefits from this reserach because with nanomaterials we can increase efficiency of PV energy and with further investments in research and production, nanomaterials can take PV energy to the next level of being used in day to day life or make it economical.