Journal Club Research Forum Brian C. McGuigan and Harley T.
Johnson, UIUC The photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion industry
continues to make progress toward grid parity; within 3-5 years
solar energy may be competitive with fossil fuel energy sources
on a cost per watt basis. New forms of lightweight, flexible,
off-grid solar energy conversion are also in development. Many
of the barriers to further PV development are associated with
materials and mechanics issues. For example, in silicon PV
technology, which currently makes up more than 80% of the
commercial PV market, over 60% of the cost of a PV module is due
to the silicon in the PV wafers. This journal club issue
presents an overview of PV energy conversion challenges from a
mechanics and materials perspective, highlighting a few key
issues that may be of interest to iMechanica readers. The key
classes of PV energy conversion technologies are briefly
described, including silicon PV; other thin film PV
technologies; and then multi-junction designs and oth