In recent years, the development and application of solar cells are gradually moving towards industrialization and commercialization. With the advent of solar-powered bicycles, cars, yachts and airplanes, people increasingly believe they could become an important alternative energy source to fossil fuels and dominate land, sea and air transportation.
People are also trying to use solar cells to build power plants to produce electricity on a large scale. In 1996, a solar cell power plant with a capacity of 750 kilowatts was officially put into operation on Miyako Island, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. For this reason, around 1996, Canon, Sanyo, Panasonic and other companies successively launched integrated solar cell thin-film residential roofing materials, among which the conversion efficiencyphotoelectric of Panasonic products reached 15.2%. Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry plans to aim for high efficiency and low cost, and strive to make the cost of solar power generation equivalent to that of conventional electricity generation in the 21st century. Currently, the world's largest silicon solar cell power plant is located in California, USA. It installs more than a million silicon cells on 108 sail panel arrays, automatically tracks the sun and has a maximum power generation capacity of 1,000 kilowatts.
The application of solar cells is often limited by geography and climate. Although the total energy "offered" by the sun to the earth is astonishing, the energy density is relatively low, only 1 kilowatt per square meter, even during hot summers. Therefore, solar cells are powerlesss facing harsh environments such as night and rain. days. . In order to solve this problem, it is generally recommended, as a precautionary measure, to store excess energy during the day in the battery for backup purposes.