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Frontiers of Engineering Reports on Leading-Edge Engineering from the 2017 Symposium (2018) / Chapter Skim
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Across Dimensions and Scales: How Imaging and Machine Learning Will Help Design Tomorrow's Energy Conversion Devices - Mariana Bertoni
Pages 29-36

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 29...
... . No renewable energy source is as abundant as the Sun, and in recent years its potential has been capitalized to the point that solar has moved from a niche source toward a mainstream electricity generation source with grid parity.
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From page 30...
... It shows that computing and photovoltaics have seen significant and steady cost reductions during the past 20 years by "packing more in a smaller volume," while oil and natural gas have remained relatively constant despite shorter-term price fluctuations. It also depicts how competitive today's solar energy prices are (light blue inset data in $/kWh)
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From page 31...
... However, the standard business model of the solar industry, with each company eager to outcompete the next in price, has made the industry very risk averse when it comes to implementation of innovation. What are the next steps?
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From page 32...
... The answer lies in highly correlative imaging methods under operating conditions combined with big data analytics. Understanding the fundamental relationships between composition and structure properties on a nanopixel basis, under real operating conditions and in situ (with both controlled and ambient temperature)
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From page 33...
... Operando measurements as well as in situ studies pose a new challenge: Finding correlations in the 3D+ datasets that result from many of these measurements is not straightforward, and the possibility of missing connections, relationships, and trends is cause for concern. Machine learning techniques, including principal component and cluster analyses, have been widely used in fields plagued with tremendous amounts of data (Hastie et al.
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From page 34...
... Washington: Solar Energy Industries Association. Powell DM, Fu R, Horowitz K, Basore PA, Woodhouse M, Buonassisi T
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From page 35...
... 2016. Selecting tandem partners for silicon solar cells.
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Key Terms

  • solar energy
  • solar cells
  • grid parity
  • solar industry
  • cost reductions

  • materials discovery
  • solar power
  • solar cell
  • energy mix
  • data analytics

  • light blue
  • levelized cost
  • natural gas
  • operating conditions
  • percent solar

  • silicon solar
  • concentrated solar
  • residential solar
  • solar lies
  • solar accounted

  • unlike solar
  • solar absorbers
  • solar spectrum
  • solar benefit
  • solar generation

  • economic solar
  • solar modules
  • optimizing solar
  • photovoltaic solar
  • image analysis


    • This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
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