this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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[โ€“] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

It depends how you're defining it. 95% of all wavelengths that hit it being converted is impossible, because solar panels only work within certain spectral ranges, but it's theoretically possible, although technically difficult, to have 95% of all relevant wavelength photons converted into electricity.

[โ€“] davetortoise@reddthat.com 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

For a p-n junction based cell, the theoretical maximum efficiency is about 33%.

You can game this a bit using tandem cells with layers of varying bandgaps, but even as the number of layers approaches infinity the theoretical maximum only increases to about 68%. They're also not hugely practical or cheap, obviously, and in practice they barely reach above the regular limit of 33% due to engineering constraints. There are some other ways of trying to get around it, but I don't know of any that can approach 95% efficiency.

Worth noting that this is staggeringly high efficiency in comparison to most other energy sources, given that at the end of the day all of them ultimately come from sunlight.

[โ€“] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

You could potentially get up to 90% (maybe more) efficiency with an optical recetnna. Though manufacturing one is presently out of reach.

[โ€“] davetortoise@reddthat.com 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Ooh cool I hadn't heard of them! My understanding from the wiki page though is that the 90% efficiency refers to energy transfer efficiency within the microwave range, rather than the conversion rate from sunlight which is theorised to be about 70%. The stuff about generating power in space using solar cells then transferring it back to earth sounds awesome, though possibly a bit impractical compared to regular solar farms.

[โ€“] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Technically you could use them on the ground too, they just make a convenient method to build a recieving station for microwave beaming, so potentially if we ever get them working in optical ranges its just a much better solar pannel.

[โ€“] davetortoise@reddthat.com 2 points 5 hours ago

Sick. Seems like something to keep an eye on