Solar Power-Cell Breakthrough 361
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from the Nanomaterials Research Centre at Massey University in New Zealand have developed synthetic dyes that can be used to generate electricity at one tenth of the cost of current silicon-based solar panels. These photosynthesis-like compounds work in low-light conditions and can be cheaply incorporated into window-panes and building materials, thereby turning them into generators of electricity."
Re:Off. The. Grid. (Score:5, Interesting)
ARGH! (Score:4, Interesting)
FTFA: "Within two to three years we will have developed a prototype for real applications. "The technology could be sold off already, but it would be a shame to get rid of it now." God DAMN it. I want a product now.
Whinging aside, I found this interesting: "They are also more environmentally friendly because they are made from titanium dioxide - an abundant and non-toxic, white mineral available from New Zealand's black sand." Very funny sentence. But anyway, titanium is one of the most common metallic elements on Earth. The problems with it are that most of it is oxidized, and until recently there has not been a worthwhile electrolytic process for its refinement (I don't know if this is catching on or not.)
I still think it's just stupid not to work on a first-generation product now, and at the same time, work on making the stuff more efficient. We need this tech and we need it TODAY.
Re:Off. The. Grid. (Score:2, Interesting)
Not at all. If this stuff actually works, who do you think will end up owning it and selling it to you (for a small monthly fee)? The energy companies certainly have the cash to buy this stuff, lock it up, and send us to patent hell for even thinking about cutting them out of the deal.
Re:Off. The. Grid. (Score:5, Interesting)
Efficiency? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ahh.. I see.
I thought that currently porphyrin dye cells had an efficiency of under 6.5%... commercial silicon cells are 14-16%, while multi-junction research lab cells are getting over 40%... (but use some rare/expensive compounds).
What I like is the ability to generate electricity in less-than-ideal light conditions, but the efficiency is a concern.
More mistakes to make (Score:4, Interesting)
So, now, you suggest that we should move PURELY to 1 form of energy? Hopefully, we will learn our lessons and just say No Thanx. I want to see alternative such as solar brought in in a BIG way, but it make good sense to continue using nukes. In addition, we should continue trying to obtain a fusion power. Somewhere down the road, either fission or fusion could be used for transportation to the planets or better other stars.
Longevity? (Score:3, Interesting)
(Yeah, it's been mentioned already. The article is light on details.)
What's the longevity of this stuff? Does it fade? What other degradation issues does it face? Silicon-based cells also DO degrage over time,too...at least their output diminishes somewhat. Is the rejuvenation process as easy as slopping on a new coat of paint?
Cool stuff, just curious as to what are the caveats when comparing implementation costs to traditional solar photovoltaics.
Re:wasn't there another one a couple years ago (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps you meant this story:
New Solar Panel Technology Gaining Momentum [slashdot.org]They're making solar cells out of silicone? (Score:2, Interesting)
For some reason, the summary didn't contain the typo. I'm disappointed.
Re:Off. The. Grid. (Score:4, Interesting)
In the long run, we're better off with the high-efficiency Si cells.
Also, we don't have a good idea of the durability of these cells. I'm a bit concerned because of the organic nature; how stable are they? What kind of reduction in efficiency will we see over, say, 20 years?
Re:Efficiency? (Score:3, Interesting)
If porphyrin-based cells can be produced (at that efficiency) for less than 1/3 the cost of silicon cells, then they're ahead of the game on cost/watt. Absolute efficiency only matters where you're area-limited. Most houses use less energy than even 6% of the sunlight that falls on their roofs (except perhaps at extreme latitudes).
Re:Off. The. Grid. (Score:2, Interesting)
On the other hand, this system has made the renewable energy a huge success in germany, For example, wind energy, which is subidized through the same system, has produced in January approximately 7000GWh of energy.
Photovoltaics is still in it's infancy, but there is hope that the success of wind energy will be repeated. One necessary condition here is that the corresponding large-scale industrial processes are well understood. This, in turn, requires large installations.
Once we are on the happy side of the learning curve the subsidies will go away. Usually they have a yearly decay factor built in.
Similiar systems are found elsewhere, for example Boeing as well as Airbus get subsidies. Boeing through military contracts, Airbus directly.
Re:Off. The. Grid. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Efficiency? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you have a cheap enough cell it is pretty easy to find somewhere to put it.
Their batteries are fucked then. (Score:2, Interesting)
Most people only think of their battery bank(s) at the time they have to buy and install them. After that it's a case of Out of Sight, Out of Mind. Then, when the batteries inevitably fail prematurely due to improper usage and lack of maintenance, they bitch about how "useless" their batteries are.
Yes, decent batteries cost, as do the ancillaries, such as cabling, but the electronics, including high capacity pure sine wave inverters, are ridiculously inexpensive now. So let's do some very basic math based upon my own system:
2 x 12 x 2V cells = 1,320 Ahr @ C20 rate (two strings of 660 Ahr cells in parallel)
1 x 2 kVA inverter
1 x 750 Watt microwave
If I max out my inverter with a 2 kVA load* that means I'm drawing approximately 84 Amperes from my battery bank. At that rate my batteires will be completely discharged (and effectively destroyed) after 15 hours. Since the most you should ever really discharge your cells is around 50% (or less, ideally), then we halve that time to 7.5 hours at maximum load.
But in this case we're only using the 750 Watt microwave oven. Thus, 750/24 = 31.25. We'll use 32.
1320/32 = 41.25 hours to 100% discharge, or a little over 20 hours at 50%.
The above does not take into account such things as inverter inefficiencies, typically a loss of around 5-10% at most. I also haven't taken into account other loads running concurrently on the inverter, but the microwave is drawing 25% of the inverter's rated capacity, and other devices (lights, televisions, computers) are unlikely to use all the rest.
In such an expensive system as your friends, I'd conclude that the inverter is far larger than my own, say in the 4 kVA range, leaving a great deal more capacity for other uses.
There are a number of reasons why a battery bank cannot support a load: inadequately sized, charged, or damaged cells; undersized cabling; undersized inverter; dodgy connections (loose, corroded, etc)
For a $100,000 system not to be able to support the relatively small load of a microwave oven, I have to conclude that your friend's battery bank is either:
a) Grossly undersized for the loads it's expected to support,
b) Damaged or inadequately conditioned and charged,
c) Incorrectly installed and/or maintained,
d) Imaginary - you made the story up, because you're a silly little troll.
To avoid being assumed to be a "d", try supplying some actual facts next time you post on a subject such as this.
*The inverter will cope with up to 3 kVA for around 20 minutes
Re:Off. The. Grid. (Score:4, Interesting)
Electric cars look a whole lot better now (Score:3, Interesting)
The real breakthrough in solar cells - production (Score:4, Interesting)
This article is yet another "we have a new chemistry and it's gonna be really cheap real soon now" article. Here's the real deal in solar power.
Yesterday, Mark Pinto from Applied Materials gave a talk in EE380 at Stanford [stanford.edu] on where they're going. Applied Materials is the biggest maker of semiconductor fab equipment, and they've branched out into making fab equipment for display panels and then solar cells.
To get costs down for big flat panel displays is a manufacturing technology problem. Applied Materials went at it in typical semiconductor-fab fashion - scaling up the fab size. They're now making panels of about 5 square meters in area. These are then cut up into 50-inch TV sets.
Once they got that working, they adapted the huge machinery involved to making solar panels. This turned out to work quite well. Since they're adapting a process that produces higher-quality product than a solar cell, they don't have significant quality problems. The solar-cell only makers tend to have spotty quality; he pointed out that with some solar panels, not all the cells are exactly the same color, which indicates trouble in the coating process.
With size and quality working, the next step is volume. They're about to build the first "40 megawatt fab" [businesswire.com], one that produces in a year enough solar panels to generate 40 megawatts. These are big panels, 2.2m x 2.6m. The price of the electricity produced should be just about even with peak-hour energy costs in Spain, where this is going. Energy payback (when you get more energy out than was required to make the panel) is about two years. That plant comes on line in 2008.
The next step is the "gigawatt fab", a scale-up of that plant. This is part of Applied Materials' "Solar Strategy" [businesswire.com]. Their position is that the technology is here; it's just necessary to get it into volume production, real volume production. Which is what Applied Materials is good at.
Now we're talking about serious production volume. Three or four such plants could build enough solar cells to cover Southern California's air conditioning energy load in five years.
Meanwhile, they have investments in some other technologies, including a "roll to roll" flexible solar cell technology, and some exotic ideas like tinted glass windows that also generate power. But they don't need a breakthrough. The current technology is good enough to be profitable, so they can start making product and shipping it in volume, while research proceeds on lowering the cost further. Pinto pointed out that about half the cost of solar power is now installation, and that needs to move beyond "a guy with a pickup truck".
So that's what's really happening. Big machines in big factories built by big companies cranking out big solar panels in big volume. Which is how you solve big problems.
Re:Off. The. Grid. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong breakthrough (Score:2, Interesting)