Now, an Australian solar company, SunDrive, has created super-efficient and cheap solar panels that use more sustainable copper to pull the electrical current from the cells rather than silver. Indeed, the latest tests have shown how copper can serve as a reliable replacement but also can push the technology into new terrain, achieving a world-record efficiency for commercially-sized silicon solar cells of 25.54%. This efficiency surpassed the previous world record of 25.26%, held by LONGi Solar, the world’s leading manufacturer of monocrystalline solar modules.

Silver is an expensive and finite resource. Copper, on the other hand, is much more abundant and around 100 times cheaper as a raw material than silver. This means the cost of solar modules could plummet if the technology is developed further.

“A lot of people, including myself, have spent many years trying to demonstrate that copper is an economically viable and sustainable alternative to silver,” said UNSW Professor Alison Lennon, who is a SunDrive advisor. “We’ve never been totally able to convince the industry, but that’s what Sundrive has done with this world record. I think this could be a real game-changer for the industry. There will be a lot of interest in how it has been achieved.”

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