Perspective Of Renewable Energy Technologies - Research Paper Example

Perspective Of Renewable Energy Technologies Renewable energy production can help the world meet its sustainable growth objectives through accessibility to clean, safe, reliable and cheap energy. The energy has become crucial, contributing a significant volume of the energy production presently. High amount of Giga watts of hydropower, wind, and solar power capacity are installed globally annually in a renewable power market that is worth over a 100 billion US Dollars every year. Other renewable energy technology markets are on the rise. Recently, there has been rampant decrease in renewable power technologies’ costs because of the R&D and facilitated dispatch. Yet policy determiners are often ignorant of the exact recent cost data. The member nations of the International Renewable Energy Agency have requested for improved, objective cost data for renewable power/energy technologies. This discussion is focused at serving that need and contribution is developed from the set of reports concerning solar power, wind, hydropower and biomass that address the present costs of these essential renewable energy technology alternatives. The reports give significant information of the current dispatch status, technological types available and their respective costs and performance. The discussion has reference from a wide variety of data with the objective of creating a unified database that supports technological comparison of different indicators such as electricity costs, equipment and projects. It also allows the technological and cost trend assessments along their variability assessment (International Renewable Energy Agency, n.d). High nanowire design has been realized as essential components for future optoelectronic Nano devices, solar cells and gas sensors etc. The discussion is of an inspired design of interwoven 3D large surface area can be precisely regulated by using a low cost and measurable design that combines electro deposition, low temperature deposition and Nano sphere lithography. The performance of such lithographic design nanowire components competes with the others. Illustrations are of this capability y by designing inorganic extremely thin absorbers solar cells using CdSe and CuSCN as absorber and hole0collectors components respectively. The light absorption of the inspired nanowire arrays, varied from 15% to 35%. Uniform absorption in the wavelength range of 400 to 800 nm over 90% was achieved. The solar conversion efficiencies were also achieved at approximately 1.33%. With reference to recent research on the worldwide energy plant market, the installed volume of solar energy developed faster than that of any other energy option. Recently generation nanostructured solar devices include dye sensitized cells and their hybrid a fully inorganic variations of thin absorber cells. They appear to possess a large absorbing potential compared to other thin films solar devices because of their incorporated large surface area with n-type semiconductor components covered by absorbers for collecting the photons. After the photons and the electrons have been separated, a photo anode then collects electrons for the generation of power. Studies agreed that TiO2 and ZnO were the potential materials with wide band gaps n-type semiconductors. Among other numerous research, nano particles and Nanowires are the most used building blocks as they either have large surface areas or have direct electron transport. In comparison, single direct Nanowires provide shorter electron collection points, thus avoiding the recombination of charge, but solar cells focusing on nano particles remain with high solar efficiency because of the larger surface area. Therefore, increasing the surface area of all Nanowires materials has been most recommended. This will help enhance the solar absorption and minimize the electron-hole recombination. The absorption and diffusion of light together with efficiency can be significantly regulated and improved by designing the dimensions of such building blocks. Regulated spacing and dimensions of hollow Nanowires building blocks were acquired by the combination of electro deposition and polystyrene sphere lithography & atomic layer deposition. This shows a twofold enhancement of light dispersion compared to other Nanowires material. However, these Nano materials have limitations regarding mechanical stability and their interspacing. The two cannot be varied hence prohibiting further optimized applications (Jamil et. al, n.d.). Health and environmental effects of Nano solar cell The solar energy produced in the current world is unable to compete with electric and fossil fuels. The solar panels and solar power technology are too expensive to manufacture power normally used for daily and industrial activities. The solar power efficiency is too low to cope up with the current increasing demand for energy. Nanotechnology provides a new dimension in the production of new and cheaper efficient solar cells. The basic solar cell uses a semiconducting material normally silicon, which is a, semi conducting material. The solar cells normally called photovoltaic cells use the principle that when the light shines upon the panel, energy is absorbed through photons. The absorbed energy displaces electrons in silicon and allows electron flow. The addition of different impurities to silicon establishes an electric field. The impurities that can be added to silicon include boron or phosphorus. The establishment of an electric field acts as a diode and the main reason it does so is that it allows electrons to flow in one direction. The continuous flow of electrons allows the establishment of electricity as normally known to many people (Priaulx 2012). The normal solar panels have considerable demerits from the fact that their efficiency is low that is ten percent and the manufacturing cost are high. The incoming photon must have the right energy mainly band gap, and in the process, the energy is less it is wasted as heat. Many issues surrounding the Nano solar cells have raised eyebrows; the exposure of workers to Nano particles at the workshop is a paramount concern. Nano particles and ultrafine particles are some of the materials that can causes health risks for example, cancer. The quantification and identification of Nano particles and ultrafine particles is a key issue to assess. The European Union has established a network that allows the use of particle counting to quantify the Nano particles. TSI 3031/ ACSM are some of the instruments currently on use, and they show a significant promise in the analysis of Nano particle exposure. The Nano particles are contributors to global warming and according to experts; the particles require stripping to establish what its components are. A growing or continuous exposure to dopant particles in the industry or workshop increases the risk chances of the user. The metabolic processing of the material has a longer duration depending on the material ingested. Many doping materials used in the making of Nano solar cells have a long half-life, which means frequent exposure to them may lead to dangerous health defects in the future or to the offspring (Breakthrough nano-technology solar cell achieves 18.2% efficiency eliminates need for anti-reflection layer 2012). In summary, increase in technological advances and the emergence of newer ways to produce energy require full scrutiny to assess the danger they pose. Nano solar cell is the new way to go in the production of clean and renewable energy. The future of nanotechnology especially in the production of Nano solar cell is promising, and full exploitation will result in the reduction in dependence on fossil fuels for energy. Recommendation Normal solar cells can provide a limited amount of energy, and the future prospect in this is the use of surface recombination rates rather than bulk recombination rates. Silicon and GaAs materials usage will result in higher surface recombination velocities, and enhancement in the performance of the Nano solar cell. The uses of 3D NPL panels are some of the prospects in the future in the establishment of a stable Nano solar cell energy producing material. Clear understandings of the doping materials remain vital in the expansion of the Nano solar cell technology. Minimization of health risks and full protection of the employees in the workshop or industry is crucial in the achievement of proper results in the future. The exploitation of novel properties of the doping material structure will enable the maximal production of energy by the Nano solar cell (Indrani 2012). Works cited Breakthrough nano-technology solar cell achieves 18.2% efficiency, eliminates need for anti reflection layer. Viewed on December 2 2012. Available at: http://phys.org/news/2012 10-breakthrough-nano-technology-solar-cell-efficiency.htmlPage1/2Breakthroughnano technologysolarcellachieves18.2%efficiency/ , 2012. Indrani Nadarajah. Future prospects of nanotechnology. Viewed on December 2nd, 2012, available at http://suite101.com/article/the-future-prospects-of-nanotechnology-a106616 International Renewable Energy Agency. Renewable energy technologies: Cost analysis series. Viewed on 2nd December 2012, available at: http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/RE_Technologies_Cost_Analy s-SOLAR_PV.pdf , 2012. Jamil Elias, Mikhael Bechelany, Ivo Utke , Rolf Erni, Davood Hosseini, Johann Michler, and Laetitia Philippe . Urchin inspired zinc oxide as building blocks for nanostructure solar cells. N.d. Mike Priaulx. Solar Cells and Nanotechnology. Viewed on December 2, 2012. Available at: http://nano.eecs.berkeley.edu/publications/NanoRes_2009_PV_NW_Review.pdf , 2012. Read More