context: so If I google how efficient are solar panels and it says the average is roughly 15 to 20% with the max is can get up to is 45%. my question is how is what does that mean?
In: Technology
The sun hits the surface of the Earth with a certain amount of energy, a common daytime reference value is 1000 Watts/m^2. But this energy is spread across the spectrum from radiowaves to microwaves to IR to visible light to UV.
Solar panels can only collect certain wavelengths of light, so if it only grabs the 20% of the spectrum around green light then it’ll produce 200W of power from the 1000 watts of light that fell on it giving you 20% efficiency.
If you make a fancy cell with 3 junctions that can grab a wider swath of light then you can get 30-40% efficiency giving you 300-400W of power from your 1 meter^2 solar panel
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