ABSTRACT
A survey of the different solar electricity options has been made by Kazmerski, with efficiencies, a listing of pros and cons, commercial status and future trends as seen at the time of writing. Efficiency was subsequently increased to about 10 per cent; but then a problem turned up: the cells degraded faster than anticipated, and it happened when they were exposed to sunlight. The halt in the price decline of conventional photovoltaic cells during a nearly ten-year period from the mid-1990s led to an opening of a window of opportunity for competing solar electricity devices, and a range of ideas was proposed. As it turned out, the low quality of the multicrystalline material in each layer caused the layers to cooperate poorly, and the concept flopped. Such devices, which can be used together with solar cells, but also for thermal applications, will be covered in Part II, together with other heat-producing systems.
