High efficiency plasmonics-based solar cells for smarter electricity grids

This paper presents an improvement method for future smart electricity grid performance using high efficiency solar cells. The smart grid offers several advantages for the connection of solar (renewable) energy sources to provide an efficient operation and better performance of the power systems. Finite-difference time domain (FDTD) method is employed to simulate the transmission, reflection and absorption of high efficiency solar cell structures. Simulation results show that the reflection loss is reduced with the use of nanostructures compared with the flat type substrates. Therefore, the proposed solar cells will inject more energy into the electricity grid and hence improving its overall performance.