Solar energy for mobile devices is still 'limited'

Solar energy which we were talking about from years , how to utilise this energy. Personally i feel this is the only energy which never ends and can be utilised in a proper way. why not we invest money in developing technology for utilising solar enery rather then electricity or any other fuel. Socal cars, Solar heaters, etc which came into the world was never a sucess story for the people.

Mobiles are most used gadgets by the people these dasy. Analysts says that Mobiles are the future computers.
Now companies are struggling hard to create mobile devices that run with soloar energy, sounds cool but how successfull they can be by designing these devices.

photovoltaic (PV) technology is the one which is being used to design solar mobiles devices.Solar or photovoltaic (PV) technology in mobile computing devices is still impeded by performance and price issues, and is not likely to entirely replace batteries anytime soon, according to analysts.

James Hines, Gartner's research director for semiconductor, told performance is the "primary inhibitor to the practical application of integrated solar cells" in today's mobile devices.Solar-powered battery chargers for mobile phones and other devices are already available in the market, but are not only expensive but performance is also "poor", he had said in a recent research document.

Even in India we have seen mobiles running with solar power. In June, Samsung launched the Solar Guru in India, which the Korean mobile maker says has the capacity to provide five to 10 minutes of talk time by charging one hour in sunlight. Japanese vendor Sharp also unveiled its Solar Phone SH002 in June, the Nikkei Business Publications reported. Samsung could not be reached for comments, while Sharp was unable to respond by press time.

For these applications to be feasible, however, there must be "a significant breakthrough in PV technology" to not only improve energy conversion efficiency but also lower costs, Hines pointed out.

Photovoltaic cells, he explained, currently have a low-energy conversion, while mobile devices increasingly consume more power in active mode. To meet "a significant portion" of the power requirements of full-feature modern mobile devices, the solar panels will have to be larger than the devices, which makes portability more problematic.


But if solar bateries are really successful, imagine the consumption of electric power can be reduces to lot extent. Hope the technology takes a diversion involves more in solar energy consumption techniques.