Global Utilization of Solar Energy and Development of Solar Cell Materials

Solar energy is an important energy for human and used in various technologies. Solar technologies are technologies which capture, convert and distribute solar energy. Studies focus on the solar energy to its importance or specific technology. There is, however, little qualitative information on status of solar energy utilizing and solar cell materials developing. This research has tended to focus on systematic analysis of global utilization and development of solar cell materials, rather than on specific technology. The results showed that from 1996 to 2010, the global solar energy utilization is exponential growth with years. The top ten solar energy utilization countries account for 90.7% of total. The highest efficiency cells are a type of tree-junction cells. Although thin-film technologies and emerging PV have some good properties, they still need to be improved, especially in efficiency.