Manipur, Feb. 16 -- Solar panels are fantastic pieces of technology, but we need to work out how to make them even more efficient - and last year, scientists solved a 40-year-old mystery around one of the key obstacles to increased efficiency.

The 2019 study outlined a material defect in silicon used to produce solar cells that has previously gone undetected. It could be responsible for the 2 per cent efficiency drop that solar cells can see in the first hours of use: Light Induced Degradation (LID) by David Nield, as reported on sciencealert.

Multiplied by the increasing number of panels installed at solar farms around the world, that drop equals a significant cost in gigawatts that non-renewable energy sources have to make up for.

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