The United States develops new solar panels that may challenge China's monopoly

“This is the next frontier,” said Mike Carr, executive director of the American Solar Manufacturers Alliance. He admitted that Chinese companies are also developing laminated solar energy, but said that China's technology is "no better than ours, and may even lag behind ours."

But new laminated solar panels and their manufacturers will face many challenges. Power producers will be reluctant to buy too expensive new equipment unless manufacturers can convince them that the performance of tandem solar cells will not degrade faster than traditional solar cells.

U.S. politics may be another obstacle. Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration are trying to increase the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power plants while making it difficult to obtain federal permits for new solar farms.

Then there's China, which controls about 80% of the solar panel market by supplying solar panels and their components.

China has decimated U.S. solar panel manufacturing by offering equipment at far lower prices than companies in the United States, Germany and Japan, which previously dominated the industry until around 2010.

Both the Biden and Trump administrations have tried to revive U.S. solar manufacturing through tariffs, subsidies and other policies. Thanks in part to this, new factories have been built across the United States in recent years. South Korean conglomerate Hanwha, which acquired German solar manufacturer Qcells in 2012, has invested billions of dollars in production lines in Georgia, including in Cartersville, north of Atlanta.

Energy experts say that if they can perfect stacked cell technology before China does, the United States, Germany and other countries could potentially regain a huge share of the global solar industry.

Qcells has been testing its tandem solar panels in its German lab and in the field in the United States, Australia, Cyprus and South Korea to prove they are ready. Among other tests, the company has been shining LED light on solar panels to see how they perform. It also fired ice pellets — some about the size of marbles, others as big or slightly larger than golf balls — at solar panels to test their ability to handle extreme weather.

The tests are intended to reassure energy companies, investors and lenders that these new solar panels will last 20 to 30 years, whether installed in the sweltering desert heat or in fields subject to heavy rains.

The power industry is "quite conservative in embracing new technologies," said Fabian Feltig, Qcells' head of overlay R&D. He is based in Leipzig, Germany. "We have been focused on stability. We have to convince banks that this new technology can deliver on its promise."

Scientists developed early laminated solar panels decades ago, but it took a long time to ensure they could withstand harsh conditions ranging from high temperatures and humidity to violent hail.

“There are all kinds of questions around how long they actually last,” said Chetan Krishna, director of RMI, a sustainability-focused research organization formerly known as the Rocky Mountain Institute. “Is there an attenuation problem that we don’t know about yet?”

Krishna and other experts say they believe laminated solar panels are very close to being put into practical use.

But the technology remains expensive. According to some estimates, these solar panels could cost three to 3.5 times more than traditional devices, which are typically made from a single layer of silicon.

According to a report from the Solar Energy Industries Association, the cost to purchase and install traditional solar panels for a solar farm is approximately 93 cents to $1.06 per watt.

Andres Gluski, chief executive of AES, a major utility and power company, said price is crucial to the success of laminated solar panels because Chinese manufacturers sell solar panels at extremely low prices. China "probably has enough to meet twice the global demand," he said.