U of T Engineering
U of T, international researchers develop more efficient two-sided solar cells A bifacial perovskite/silicon solar cell prototype is field-tested at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia (photo courtesy of Michele De Bastiani)
To increase the performance of solar panels, a team of researchers based in Saudi Arabia, Italy, Germany and Canada has created a bifacial, or two-sided, tandem solar cell. The prototypes bring together the best of two separate technologies: silicon and perovskites.
Out in the field, light primarily comes directly from the sun. Conventional tandem solar cells already convert this light into electricity more efficiently compared to traditional silicon-only solar cells by absorbing additional wavelengths of light.