China to help SL produce thin-film solar cells
Posted on July 30th, 2017
Sandun A Jayasekera Courtesy The Daily Mirror
Sri Lanka will be soon producing thin-film solar cells on a commercial basis with technological cooperation from China as a means of popularising the use of solar panels for domestic power generation, Science, Technology and Research Minister Susil Premajayantha said.
He said a number of young technicians were being trained on ‘Modern Solar Power Technology’ at the Colombo, Ruhuna, Jaffna and Kelaniya universities.
“I paid a visit to China last week with some Sri Lankan scientists to obtain first hand experience on solar power technology. The Chinese government is helping us to develop solar power technology in Sri Lanka. I hope we will be in a position to drastically reduce the use of costly thermal power generation which is also an environment pollutant,” the minister said.
He said producing it locally on a mass scale would help the government’s plan to phase out coal and thermal power generation and increase solar power generation to 800 MWs by 2030.
Thin-film technology has been cheaper but less efficient than conventional c-Si technology. However, its quality standards have significantly improved over the years. The lab cell efficiency for CdTe and CIGS is now beyond 21%, out-performing multi-crystalline silicon, the dominant material currently used in many solar crystalline systems.
August 1st, 2017 at 3:03 am
We should have solar panels on every roof and it could be a cottage industry for some where one could use that electricity charge the up and coming electric cars.Every such hose should have a net metering system where by the power put into the grid in the day could be extracted at night to charge the cars, kept over night. There fore every such house must have it’s own parking lot. Good move by China, should be welcomed.