CAJ 10 - Three Generations of Solar Cells

In search of potential weaknesses or disadvantages of solar cells, I ended up at the website of the Technical University of Denmark. In their online course they defined three types of solar cells, from the first generation to the third. I will now explain the advantages and disadvantages of each of them:

First generation – Silicon Solar Cells:

The first solar cells were made of crystalline silicon and are what everybody has in mind when thinking of solar cells. They are thick, rigid, heavy and very inefficient. The materials they use are very expensive and their production consumes a lot of energy. That is why they were only used when really necessary, where the price of the energy was not important like in space, on satellites.

Second generation – Thin Film Solar Cells:

The next generation of solar cells was much lighter and easier to produce. Instead of building such big cells like the first generation, the solar cell was now a thin film on a carrier substrate. A popular example of second generation solar cells is the amorphous silicon solar cell. It solved most of the problems the first generation had. The manufacturing temperature was much lower, the energy consumption in general was low and the materials were not as expensive. However, with these advantages came some inherent problems. They were not as stable as the older ones, suffered from bad contacts, sensitivity to the atmosphere like water and oxygen and a decay in performance.

Third generation – Organic Solar Cells:

The new generation of solar cells are the organic ones. They can be produced at even lower cost and temperatures and use even thinner films. There is an indefinite number of materials and ways they can be built. Moreover, they operate at an average 10% or more efficiency rate, are extremely thin, use very little material and can be manufactured even faster than the second generation. The only potential problem with them is that they can also be unstable like the thin film solar cells. Other than that, there lies a huge potential in this third generation.

This already answered part of my question. I know now that there can be solar cells, which are not especially environmentally friendly because they use much energy and materials when being produced. However, with this third generation, this problem is solved and solar power really seems so be one of the very best renewable energy sources.