Reasearchers from Japanese car maker, Toyota Motor Corporation, electronics manufacture, Sharp and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization of Japan have determined the technical potential of applying solar cells based on gallium arsenide (GaAs) and other III-V materials to cars partially powered by PV.
Cost have limited GaAs and III-V solar cells to applications such as powering satellite and drones though they are among the best known in terms of efficiency potential.
Scientists say this market may reach a global cumulative installed PV capacity of 50GW by 2030 and 0.4TW by 2040.
The researchers said that when the 70% of the annual sold passenger cars are equipped with the 1kW rated-power PV module, the potential of the annual market size is calculated to be 50GW/year.
High speed deposition(H-VPE) is shown as a way to reduce cost of deposition for III-V materials without sacrificing performance significantly. The researchers said that H-VPE uses elemental group III's, eliminating the processing needed to form metal organics and enabling up to 10 times reduction in group-III input cost.
Researchers said the III-V cells based on silicon could have future potential for automotive applications due to efficiencies that can be above 40% and their low cost and light weight.
Culled from EMILIANO BELLINI
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