Solar's new power (Part.01)

Solar energy has had a good crisis. In many parts of the world skies clear of pollution have helped photovoltaic power stations, which convert light into electricity, become more productive and reliable. Declining demand, meanwhile, has seen coal- and gas-fired stations taken offline. In Britain, on April 20th, solar generation peaked at 9.7 gigawatts. At the moment this happened that represented almost 30% of the country’s electricity supply─ten times the usual proportion. In Germany the proportion of solar in the mix reached 23% for an entire week in April, compared with an average of about 8% during 2019.

• good crisis
  • 有益的危机
    • Never let a good crisis go to waste. 不要错失一个有益的危机。
• clear (of sth)
  • [noun] 远离，不靠近，不接触
• photovoltaic
  • 光电的
• declining
  • 减少的，下降的，衰退的
• generation
  • （尤指电、热等的）产生
• proportion
  • 部分，份额

Though temporary, such figures are impressive. Solar power, they suggest, has come of age. In some ways, however, despite solar’s new and shiny image, this is the victory of an old technology.

• figure
  • （代表数量，尤指官方资料中的）数字
• come of age
  • if sth comes of age, it reaches the stage of development at which people accept and value it 成熟，发达

The first practical solar cell was made in the 1950s at Bell Labs in New Jersey. It had an efficiency of 6% and was horrendously expensive. It did, though, prove to have a killer application in powering the satellites of the superpowers in the forthcoming space race. That kept interest alive.

• practical
  • 切实可行的
• solar cell
  • 太阳能电池
• horrendously
  • 令人震惊地
• satellite
  • 人造卫星；卫星
• superpower
  • 超级大国

Gradually, costs came down, efficiencies tripled to 17-20% and applications widened, until the point, now arrived at, where grid managers faced with surplus capacity are preferring solar to fossil-fuel generation. For all that they have got better in detail, though, solar cells have stayed the same in principle. Two layers of ultrapure (99.9999%) silicon, each doped with an additive to make it semiconducting, absorb light and use the energy from this to move electrons across the junction between them, thus generating an electric current.

• triple
  • （使）增至三倍
• grid
  • （输电线路、天然气管道的）系统网络；输电网；煤气输送网
    • the national grid 国家输电网
• surplus
  • 过剩地，剩余的
• for all that
  • in spite of that 虽然如此
• ultrapure
  • extremely pure 超纯地
• silicon
  • 硅
• dope
  • to add impurities to (a semiconductor) in order to produce or modify its properties 掺杂
• additive
  • 添加剂，添加物

For gridscale electricity produced in standard solar farms this arrangement is likely to continue. But many people think solar energy has wider potential than that. Some want to redesign solar farms in radical ways. Others see it as having small-scale applications that do not require connection to a grid. Both of these approaches will require efficiencies that standard silicon has never managed to achieve. But both will permit high prices for cells that do so.

• radical
  • new, different and likely to have a great effect 全新的，不同凡响的
  • radiant
    • [only before noun] 辐射的，放射的
• efficiency
  • （能源的）效率，功率