A Better Material Has Now Been Discovered for Use in the Solar Industry
Solar power is big business at the moment, and various companies are jumping onboard with this type of renewable energy, either selling or reap the benefits themselves. Now, scientists at GE’s Global Research Center have discovered a material that could just revolutionize the solar industry.
Solar power is big business at the moment, and various companies are jumping onboard with this type of renewable energy, either selling or reap the benefits themselves. Now, scientists at GE’s Global Research Center have discovered a material that could just revolutionize the solar industry. It was first discovered in an attempt to produce artificial diamonds, but now researchers have found that silicon carbide (SiC) can actually replace silica that is currently used throughout the solar industry.
Silicon carbide is a compound of silicon and carbon that has super strength, is an excellent conductor of electricity and can cope with very high temperatures. This type of application is used most often in solar power inverters that switch DC current that is generated by solar power to AC current that can be fed back to the grid.
SiC has the ability to not only cope with high temperatures but to also switch faster than any silicon based products and achieve twice the power density while doing so. And, it has about half the physical footprint than that of silicone based inverters, which is an important factor. The Sic LV5+ Solar Inverter from GE has an efficiency of about 99%, while others in the EU are only at 98% on average and while this might not seem like a big deal, it’s the difference between powering an extra 170 extra homes per year. SiC is going to bring great things to the worlds of not just solar power but possibly planes, trains and wind turbines too and could be one of those technologies that can change the world.
Original Article Writer; Dr. James Conca is a geochemist, an energy expert, a planetary geologist and professional speaker. Twitter @jimconca and see his book at Amazon.com
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Rachel Kowalski
Rachel Kowalski is the Cybersecurity Analyst at TrendinTech, where she covers vulnerabilities, ransomware, supply chain attacks, nation-state operations and the security rules shaping organizations in the United States and Europe. Before moving into journalism she worked as a threat intelligence analyst at a security vendor and later reported for CyberScoop and the security desk at Wired, covering the SolarWinds compromise and the ransomware wave that hit hospitals and pipelines. Rachel holds a Master of Science in Cybersecurity from the Georgia Institute of Technology and attends Black Hat and DEF CON in Las Vegas each year, where she follows research from the security community. She writes to make risks and countermeasures understandable to people who are not specialists.
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