Mitsubishi breaks solar record, invests 7 billion yen
As Roy Castle sang, “If you want to be the best, if you want to beat the rest, ooo-ooo, dedication’s what you need - if you want to be a record breaker”. If Castle’s comments are right, then in seems Mitsubishi Electrics has got dedication (ooo-ooo) in abundance.
The company has just revealed its got a world record breaking solar cell which promises a conversion efficiency rate of 18.6 percent - up 0.6 percent on its last bite of the cherry. The efficiency rate came from a 150mm multi-crystalline silicon solar cell, which broke the record thanks to a low reflectivity surface texture, a bit like a honeycomb, which helped increase electric current generation.
The company wants to be able to get the new cell into production by fiscal 2011. And if all that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, the company is investing around 7 billion yen to expand annual production capability of its photovoltaic cells.
If all goes well, by October this year, production capacity will have grown from 150 MW to 220 MW and by fiscal 2013, that figure will be up to 500 MW.
18.6% efficiency is Record breaking? Maybe in 1995, but this is 2008.
The current record efficiency is a huge 40.7% held by Boeing-Spectrolab.