Now the Sheffield Hallam University team has come up with some cost-cutting ideas: a low-cost semiconductor production method called electrode position, less reliance on expensive semiconductor materials, and the identification of alternative solar cell devices and manufacturing techniques with higher conversion efficiencies. Such efficiencies mean that more power can be produced per cell so that the cost of each unit of electricity generated is reduced. PV can help the environment by offsetting the need to rely on electricity generated from the burning of fossil fuels. Two distinct systems now entering the PV market are based on the use of cadmium telluride and copper indium gallium di-selenide (CIGS) materials in solar cells.

The team at Sheffield Hallam University has increased our understanding of PV by showing how solar cells based on CdTe and CIGS structures work. Lack of knowledge in this area, combined with cost, has hindered the widespread take-up of the technology. Now the team has opened up the prospect of new solar cells being developed commercially with higher conversion efficiencies than those currently available. Dr I. M. Dharmadasa, who led the research team says: 'We've already applied for two patents and are preparing the final draft of the third patent in connection with our work, but there's a lot more science to be explored that could increase conversion efficiencies to over 20% in the near future'. The research initiative, Low-cost, High-efficiency Thin-film Solar Cells with Electrodeposited Semiconductors, has received initial total Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council funding of £104,632 and follow-up Sheffield Hallam University funding of £140,000.

EPSRC is the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences and invests more than £400 million a year in research and postgraduate training to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. With affordable energy provision remaining one of the world's most urgent needs, the advances being made in this area offer real hope for a future in which energy supplies are more widely available without the drawback of environmental damage.

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