Okay – so it’s not actually black. It just looks that way due to the absence of reflective light. We’re speaking, of course, about Natcore Technology’s new “Blackest Solar Cell”. Recently announced on March 29th, Natcore’s new solar cell technology touts an average of .3% reflectiveness – leaving 99.7% of incidental light to be absorbed and made available for conversion into electricity.
The benefits to us of this new solar cell? More efficient and less expensive solar panels. The process is unusual, and therefore there aren’t many production facilities that can handle the production process. This will change, however, as Natcore is working with production facilities to create a tool that can make up to 2,000 of these cells per hour.
There is currently no date set where solar installers can start applying this technology, although NREL has offered several patents to Natcore to simplify the production and sales process.