Harvard, IBM team with the world in search of cheaper solar cells

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 09 December 2008 06:23

Science - Energy

IBM and Harvard University are spearheading a project to make cheaper and more efficient solar cells by harnessing spare computer capacity around the world. The project will harness the power of more than one million computers connected to the World Community Grid.

Problems with current silicon-based solar cells include low efficiency (around 20 percent of the energy is converted to electricity) and high cost (around $US3 per watt).

Researchers believe that the right mix of organic molecules may allow solar electricity generation at lower cost.

A huge amount of computing power is needed to screen candidates, and that's where the World Community Grid comes in.

The World Community Grid harnesses the unused power of computers that sit idle. Free software provides a means of automatically and securely running computations when a computer has nothing better to do.

And with more than one million computers participating in the Grid, there's plenty of grunt that can be applied to scientific problems.

"It would take us about 100 days of computational time to screen each of the thousands of compounds for electronic properties without the power of World Community Grid" said Alan Aspuru-Guzik, the principal investigator and a professor in Harvard's department of chemistry and chemical biology.

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