Goal For The Green

Guest Post by Georgia Halston

Buying a solar panel system has become common place for those who can afford it. Many have their own motives, but few fall out of the realms of the main two reasons: to save money and to save the environment, and the new ground-breaking discovery is good news on either front.

The University of Texas at Austin, was founded in 1883 and of its alumni, the institute can boast: award winning director Wes Anderson, First Lady Laura Bush, actor and award winning screen writer Owen Wilson and Nobel Prize winner John Maxwell Coetzee. Joining the illustrious ranks of these modern greats will be by chemist and Professor: Xiaoyang Zhu.

Zhu is the lead author on the study that discovered the true potential of solar panels and how tapping into that potential could lead to globally relevant changes in the field. The overall conclusion of the study was that:

Photovoltaic cells produce electricity directly from sunlight (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“The efficiency of conventional solar cells could be significantly increased”.
Professor Zhu goes on to state that:
“It’s possible to double the number of electrons harvested from one photon of sunlight using an organic plastic semiconductor material.

“Plastic semiconductor solar cell production has great advantages, one of which is low cost,”

“Combined with the vast capabilities for molecular design and synthesis, our discovery opens the door to an exciting new approach for solar energy conversion, leading to much higher efficiencies.”

Source:  http://www.utexas.edu/news/2011/12/15/dark_state/

The possibility of the efficiency change of solar cells, according to the report, is a staggering 50%. This means, that if the new research is put into practice and the technology is manufactured based on the new findings, every owner of a solar panel energy system could see twice as much output from the sun’s rays.

As well as the domestic sphere, Zhu’s discovery can also have amazing repercussions in the business world. Commercial solar panels should be more than an afterthought for medium and large businesses looking to cut costs. In times of economic downturn, large corporations need to be a lot less short sighted when it comes to cutting outgoings. At the moment it seems the loss of employees is the go-to option for too many employers, actions such as these, only act as stunting agents to an already crumbling economy.
Keeping staff and using alternative methods of cost cutting such as the use of renewable energy, especially with discoveries such as the one by Xiaoyang Zhu, are the some of the only methods of boosting business as well as the economy!