While these stories on solar efficiency going up and up might become as repetitive as Al Gore on the cover of magazines, they’re still an important reminder that R&D, investments, and technology are moving ever forward in this industry.

It was announced today that the University of Delaware has achieved 42.8% efficiency with a silicon solar cell in the conversion of sunlight to energy. The previous record-holder of 40.7% efficiency may make this seem ho-hum, but this latest achievement allows for a much broader range of applications. How so? The earlier technology reached 40% using a solar cell with a thickness of almost one foot! The new process allows over 42% while keeping the cell to just under 1 centimeter. A massive difference indeed! From the article,

"This is a major step toward our goal of 50 percent efficiency,’ Barnett said. ‘The percentage is a record under any circumstance, but it’s particularly noteworthy because it’s at low concentration, approximately 20 times magnification. The low profile and lack of moving parts translates into portability, which means these devices easily could go on a laptop computer or a rooftop.’ Honsberg said the advance of 2 percentage points is noteworthy in a field where gains of 0.2 percent are the norm and gains of 1 percent are seen as significant breakthroughs."

Current solar arrays — lie the ones you might increasingly be seeing on rooftops — have commercially peaked at 17%. This latest breakthrough — which Dupont and the University are working to bring to market by 2010 — would allow the same energy output in less than half the space. Beautiful! Let’s hope price drops follow efficiency increases. One can dream, one can dream…

For more information on the achievement, please click here.

Not content, however, to simply let a few thousand solar panels represent their green values, Google also unveiled a new parking garage specifically designed for plug-in-electric vehicles and hybrid cars. Employees can now charge while at work and hit the road freshly juiced afterwards. "Wait a minute," you say. "There aren't any commercial plug-in cars available yet!" And you're right. So, to address this issue, Google is also taking hybrid vehicles and converting them to plug-ins so that they can cruise along on only electricity for longer periods of time and at greater speeds. According to the article, they've so far converted four Toyota Prius and two Ford Escapes. Almost 100 such conversions are planned for employees to use as a car-share program while at work. Who are these guys?

Hold on, there's more. Monday also marked the launch of Google's new philanthropic division, RechargeIT. The group has earmarked $10 million for investments in companies and projects that support alternative transportation that reduces the use of fossil fuels and emissions. You can also visit the site to see how the plug-in cars that Google has converted are performing.

To say this is encouraging would be a bit of an understatement. Would the rest of the corporate U.S. please pay attention? The future of business sustainability lies in example at Google HQ. We applaud their efforts and hope such green initiative become contagious nationwide.

Hit the jump for more.