The Center for Advanced Studies and Energy at the University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar has developed new solar panels at half the current cost with the help of international partners using third-generation solar photovoltaic technology.
According to the newspaper, Dr. Najibullah, the project’s supervisor at UET, told Dawn that lightweight and flexible panels would be officially unveiled this week.
Han, a professor at China’s Hozhong University of Science and Technology, and Dr. Toby Meyer of SolarSonics in Switzerland were also part of the project.
Dr. Najibullah, who has a PhD in material sciences from Cambridge University, said the research phase of the project began in 2014, while the third-generation solar panel prototype was at UET’s Center for Advanced Studies and Energy this year. Developed in 2019 with the support of the provincial government.
He said the center was set up in 2014 with US aid.
He said the third-generation solar photovoltaic panels would cost 50 per cent less than the silicon photovoltaic technology sold in the country, which is manufactured mostly by Chinese companies.
He said that the cost of third generation solar panels will be less than the current cost because the material used in them is locally available and requires low temperature in its manufacture.
Dr. Najibullah said that the solar panels in the market require highly refined silicon which is 99.99999% pure and also requires temperature above 1100 and degree Celsius.
“We have used naturally available metal halide prostaglandins in place of silicon in our product, which will be produced at 450 degrees Celsius,” he said.
When contacted, Chief Minister’s Education Adviser Kamran Bangash said that the government fully supports such inventions and that is why the duration of this solar technology project has been extended for another year.
“Such innovations will generate revenue for universities and help stabilize them,” he said.
