Scientists Just Set a New World Record In Solar Cell Efficiency (sciencealert.com) 105
According to a paper published in the journal Science, researchers report they they have now hit an efficiency of 29.15 percent in the perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell category. ScienceAlert reports: For this type of panel, the long-term target of more than 30 percent is now tantalizingly within reach. The latest lab tests edge ahead of the maximum 28 percent efficiency that perovskite/silicon cells have managed up to this point. [...] In this new research, the 29.15 percent efficiency record was managed with a 1 cm x 1 cm (0.4 inch x 0.4 inch) panel, so some serious scaling up will be required. The team says that should be possible, however. After 300 hours of simulated use, the tandem cell retained 95 percent of its original efficiency, which is another promising sign.
The new record was actually first reported earlier this year, though the peer-reviewed paper detailing the feat has just been published. The scientists used specially tweaked layer compositions for both connecting the electrode layer and keeping the two types of cell together in order to reach their new record. It's another moment to celebrate, but the scientists aren't stopping: previous research suggests that tandem solar cell technology should be able to reach efficiency rates of well above 30 percent, and the team says "initial ideas for this are already under discussion."
The new record was actually first reported earlier this year, though the peer-reviewed paper detailing the feat has just been published. The scientists used specially tweaked layer compositions for both connecting the electrode layer and keeping the two types of cell together in order to reach their new record. It's another moment to celebrate, but the scientists aren't stopping: previous research suggests that tandem solar cell technology should be able to reach efficiency rates of well above 30 percent, and the team says "initial ideas for this are already under discussion."
What is the significance of the 30% (Score:3)
Is there anything special about 30 percent, or is that just the next milestone?
Re:What is the significance of the 30% (Score:5, Informative)
Is there anything special about 30 percent, or is that just the next milestone?
Nothing except that it's a round number.
30% isn't an efficiency record for solar cells-- it's an efficiency record for this particular type of solar cells.
Nevertheless, a pretty impressive piece of work.
Re:What is the significance of the 30% (Score:5, Interesting)
30% isn't an efficiency record for solar cells-- it's an efficiency record for this particular type of solar cells.
Correct ... and the reason efficiency for this particular type of solar cells is important is that they are expected to be cheap and easy to manufacture.
Perovskite solar cells [wikipedia.org]
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Yeah, but it's perskovite cells.
Like lead?
Like surprisingly large amounts of lead (up to 1g/m2)?
Like lead that readily converts to a soluble form in the presence of water (e.g. such as through damage in the glazing)?
Like all this in a product with a comparably short lifespan?
Well, have I got a treat for you...
Re:What is the significance of the 30% (Score:4, Interesting)
" Two new types of solar cells show excellent promise for use in telephone circuits and other applications. One of these cells utilizes a layer of crystalline cadmium sulfide deposited on indium phosphide. The cell has a conversion efficiency of 12.5%, which means that 12.5% of the sunlight that strikes the cell is converted into electrical energy.
College Chemistry - Nebergall, Holtzclaw, Robinson, 1980
For context, consider that the first silicon solar cell which utilized boron and phosphorus had an even lower efficiency than this. It is perhaps the difficulty by which progress has been made that makes this significant.
It has taken 4 decades to more than double the efficiency of the solar cell. Compared to advances in computing power it is dreadfully slow, but compared to advances in other disciplines it is quite remarkable. We still don't have practical room-temperature superconductors, nor do we have optical computers, and quantum computers have not replaced their silicon counterparts in spite of at least two decades of research.
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Doubling the output of solar cells is not all that impressive when it's going from 14% to 29%. There's a theoretical limit on the efficiency of converting solar power into something useful, and as I recall that limit is about 35%.
What is impressive is getting so close to the theoretical limit. What this means is that the advances of solar power efficiency will be coming to an end. There will simply be a point in which it is cheaper to make more solar PV cells than to make the ones you have more efficient
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I'm just glad advances are happening. Every advance moves us a bit further, and can be combined with something else. Getting as close to 35% is one thing, but hopefully this will allow solar panels to be made for less cost, and made out of materials which are easier to recycle.
I'm just hoping advances in battery tech happen as well.
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The theoretical limit on the efficiency is Carnot. The input is at 5800K or so, the output is around 300K. This leads to a maximum efficiency of ~95%.
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Congratulations on not even finishing the first section of solar cell efficiency [wikipedia.org], and cherry picking a convenient number which is also near meaningless in context. If you had continued, you might have learned that the maximum theoretical efficiency calculated is 68.7% for a stack of an infinite number of cells, when the incoming radiation comes only from an area of the sky the size of the sun.
Or for more typical single junction cells, which are physically realizable and economical, the Shockley–Queiss [wikipedia.org]
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Or for more typical single junction cells, which are physically realizable and economical, the Shockley–Queisser limit applies, giving a maximum theoretical efficiency of 33.7%.
Which is all well and good but it's blindingly obvious that we don't want single junction cells. Ultimately we want multi-junction cells which are optimized for the Sun's output frequencies. Estimates are that really aggressive multi-junction cells could achieve 80% conversion, losing nothing but deep infrared as heat. That's what we want. And we want them cheap and plentiful.
By the end of the century, they might be.
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No it is not.
The Carnot principle is for heat engines based on hot gases.
A solar cell works by the photo electric effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The Sun is a heat engine. Therefore you cannot beat Carnot for harvesting solar, no matter which technology you use.
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No?
I would suggest you read it up on Wikipedia and come back when you have grasped it.
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I suggest you do the same :)
There are other limits to solar power efficiency that you hit before the ~95% mark, but the ~95% mark is the absolute highest that will never be exceeded. Otherwise you could use Carnot-limit heat pumps at 95% to heat a gas to 5800K, use 97% efficient solar cells to get the energy back to electricity, power the heat pumps with the output, and have a perpetual motion device.
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There are other limits to solar power efficiency that you hit before the ~95% mark, but the ~95% mark is the absolute highest that will never be exceeded.
There are no Carnot limits for quantum processes, sorry.
You do not grasp what you are talking about.
But by accident you are right, there wont be 95% efficient solar cells. Probably not even 75%, But the reason is that you would need a multi layer cell, the upper layers would need to be completely transparent for everything it is not absorbing, so the next
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The heat pump would output 1/0.95, which is just over 105% of the input energy. That is the Carnot limit for heat pumps if you want to go from 300K to 5800K. Not fantastic, but enough to make your 97% efficient solar cells into a perpetual motion device.
You cannot use quantum processes to defeat thermodynamics.
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And that exactly is why the Carnot principle does not apply to anything that has nothing to do with heated/compressed gases ... Sorry. That is pretty clear from wikipedia, I link it AGAIN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Grasp it, or don't. Up to you.
And this:
The heat pump would output 1/0.95, which is just over 105% of the input energy.
Is wrong anyway. How you come to that absurd idea is completely beyond me (and has nothing to do with the discussed effectiveness of solar cells at all). Where and why do
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An ideal heat pump is governed by the same Carnot efficiency rule. It is reversible. The maximum output of a heat pump with an input of 300K and an output of 5800K is indeed just over 105% of the input energy. If you then have a >95% way to extra energy from a 5800K reservoir, say by using the emitted photons, you can achieve perpetual motion.
Since it is well established that you cannot achieve perpetual motion, you also cannot extract more than 95% of the energy from the Sun, as long as you use Earth as
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Since it is well established that you cannot achieve perpetual motion, you also cannot extract more than 95% of the energy from the Sun, as long as you use Earth as a heat sink.
Again: the Carnot principle does not work for photon emissions. No idea why you insist it would.
It is a rule for exchange of compressed and/or heated gases. Theres is no gas between the sun and the solar panel.
Read a book about physics.
And the Carnot principle can not be reversed anyway. The "pump" of the heat pump has to provide the
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Seriously, this is getting embarrassing for you. I will stop here.
One last thing: The heat pump takes 1 unit of electric energy and 0.05 units of heat energy at 300K and outputs 1.05 unit of energy at 5800K. That is what ideal heat pumps do.
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Such an ideal heat pump does not exist. And the higher the temperature you want to achieve with a heat pump, the closer you are at expending exactly the same amount of energy you have moved.
Sorry, you seriously read a book about it. Anyway, good bye.
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What are theoretical limits at -5C and 35C? Got a formula?
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and as I recall that limit is about 35%.
The limit depends on the chemistry of the cell.
And what you practically can build for a certain cost.
There is no real physical limit for solar cells, it is only extremely impractical to build one with 90% efficiency. The problem is that you need to capture photons and propel them into the conductive band of the cell. And that means the frequency of the photon must match the energy needed to kick an electron out of its orbit. Obviously if you only use doted silicon tha
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Exactly. Whoopdedo! We added an incremental improvement so instead of being almost at the theoretical limit, we are now almost at the theoretical limit, but a tiny bit closer.
Re:What is the significance of the 30% (Score:4, Interesting)
It has taken 4 decades to more than double the efficiency of the solar cell. Compared to advances in computing power it is dreadfully slow,
True, but have you looked at the graph of "price per kW" over that timespan?
That's the only graph that really matters.
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"room-temperature superconductors": I think you just need a colder room. Take my dorm room in college; I could probably have strung superconductor Christmas lights. I think the windows radiated cold.
5% decay after 300 sounds bad.. (Score:3)
Considering that panels are on roofs 24x7x365 I would think that 5% decay after what would be 12.5 days or if you only count sunshine hours that would be a month.
Isn't that pretty bad? (Not finding anything on current panel decay rate)
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This is research. The goal is to learn more about the physics of perovskite and then apply that knowledge to future designs. Nobody is going to put this particular panel into production.
Re:5% decay after 300 sounds bad.. (Score:5, Informative)
This tests the cell material efficiency, not the long term system performance. It's a step on the road to new deployable technology, not a finished product.
Re: 5% decay after 300 sounds bad.. (Score:1)
Re: 5% decay after 300 sounds bad.. (Score:4)
Really? Where can you buy a perovskite solar cell? They're cheap if you're allowed to ignore both the labor costs of the scientists making them and the environmental laws that prevent scaled up use of the materials used in that manufacture. So... they're not actually efficient on a cost basis yet.
Oxford PV has been working on this, and every year their commercial launch moves back by a year.
Cost per watt (Score:3)
Have you seen how much desert land and rooftops there are? Efficiency is a non-issue for solar power. What matters is the cost per watt. If solar panels were merely 1% efficient, but cost 1 cent per square foot .. like say the cost of paper .. we would be at 100% solar power overnight. Coal mines wouldn't exist. Everything would be solar powered.
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The funny thing is that if solar panels are mounted on frames, with an air gap between the panel and the roof, the panels act as shade for the house, as the only way heat transfers is via the mounting brackets. It sounds counter-intuitive, but solar panels actually lower the rooftop temperature similar to how a metal heat shield keeps heat from a stove from igniting the building materials behind it.
Now, if one uses flexible panels which are glued directly to the roof with no frame and air gap... then all b
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Now, if one uses flexible panels which are glued directly to the roof with no frame and air gap... then all bets are off, as that heat transfers directly to the house.
Not all bets. Solar panels which are functioning always result in a net heat reduction. Some of the solar energy that would have been converted 100% to heat gets converted to electricity and shipped away. Whatever is left becomes heat. You always win by at least the efficiency of the solar panel. Conservation of energy. Shading effects with air gaps are a side benefit.
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A lot of people keep thinking this, but it's just not true.
There are area-related costs. Efficiency matters. It's not the only thing, but it's important.
Re:Cost per watt (Score:5, Interesting)
Efficiency is a non-issue for solar power. What matters is the cost per watt.
Only about half the cost of a solar installation is the panels. The rest is the frame, mounts, connections, and labor. If the panels are 30% more efficient, then they have a better cost per watt even if they are also 30% more expensive, because you will still save on the other costs.
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But you don't save on much of the wiring, or the inverter, or the permitting, or the inspection.
Assuming sufficient roof space, reducing the panel area by 30% isn't going to save 30% of the cost of installing the panels.
Cost per watt still dominates.
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But you don't save on much of the wiring, or the inverter, or the permitting, or the inspection.
Assuming sufficient roof space, reducing the panel area by 30% isn't going to save 30% of the cost of installing the panels.
Cost per watt still dominates.
I think the point the GP was trying to make is that panels are usually a standard size, give or take a few inches, and most folks are likely to put in as many as the roof can handle, so in practice, you don't end up with a 30% smaller panel or 30% fewer panels; you end up with 30% more power production.
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The cost is less if installed when the building is built, or when the roof is replaced. Lowest installation cost of all is solar roof tiles, available from several vendors.
Re:Cost per watt (Score:4, Insightful)
You must live in a strange country that those costs are so high.
BTW: normally we count costs for frames, mounts and connections as costs of the solar panel, not separately. Counting them separately makes no sense at all.
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Efficiency is a non-issue for solar power. What matters is the cost per watt.
1) If you increase efficiency, you increased the watts.
2) The whole reason this technology is interesting, instead of competing technologies that can get over 35% efficiency, is because it is expected to be cheap to manufacture.
(For context, the top end retail cells for satellite and research use were getting over 30% in the 90s. And the price hasn't really come down on that tech.)
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1) If you increase efficiency, you increased the watts.
Yes, I am talking about cost per watt, not plain watts .. My point is that cost per watt is more important than improving efficiency. Cost per watt does not necessarily improve with efficiency increases. I mean, what if increasing the efficiency by 1% involved adding gold and diamonds to it? That would mean an INCREASE in *cost* per watt. The cost would be very high, so nobody would afford it. (
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If you increase the output, you lowered the cost per unit.
My goodness, you either had a head injury, or bought an old account.
My point
You insult yourself by claiming you had a point. It is too stupid for you to get any partial credit. You'd have a better score if you said, "I don't know."
I mean, what if [you didn't isolate any variables]
Then you wouldn't have any point at all, you'd just be blathering a thought stream.
What if Martians invaded tomorrow? What if giving me all your money will prevent it from happening?! What if!!!
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I was about to respond to his original idiocy, but decided to read answers to it first, and think you've taken the cake.
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"If you increase the output, you lowered the cost per unit."
That isn't necessarily true you moron. It depends on the COST to increase the output. Do you know even know what they spent to increase the output? OK, how much did the modifications needed to increase the output cost? You are assuming it was free, you can't do that .. dumbass.
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1) If you increase efficiency, you increased the watts.
only if you assume the panel is a perfect sphere in a frictionless plane.
In the real world, no, it just means you need less area. Area is very rarely a limiting factor. Dollars per kW is what matters.
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No, it counts. Not for something like 50%, but it counts.
For 3 years I've been watching the cost of solar plummet in my area. So far, it's fallen by more than I'd generate in a year each year. So every year I put it off, I essentially make more money when I finally pull the trigger.
I need a new roof, so I'm 100% invested in them continuing to get cheaper for a couple of years while I do that and save up for the panels.
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There may be enough solar power for the world but that doesn't mean much to a nation. There are nation's with far too high population density to rely on solar power to power their nation, no matter how efficient you make the solar panel. Because these nations reached this level of agricultural and industrial output to maintain their populations from being independent nations they will not be terribly willing to give up this independence for dependence on imported solar power. Much like these nations are
Balance (Score:2)
The change (potential and otherwise) in pollution and energy independence is, however, more significant.
Positive change often manifests this way.
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Have you seen how much desert land and rooftops there are? ...
Have you tried to carry desert land and rooftops with you? Probably not. Range and mobility is an issue. If we need to use up a lot of space and build vast energy networks to make and distribute power then we might as well build more nuclear reactors and use the free space for agriculture.
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Sweden and Norway, say, are a long ways from desert land. And while they get a fair amount of sun in the summer, winter tends to be a bit different. Those northern lights just don't do much for solar cells.
I suppose if you could lay a humongous electric cable from the Sahara up to Sweden or Norway... not sure about the losses, or what would happen if you had a cable break.
Efficiency is the most important thing. (Score:2)
The real measure is cost per kW. If improved efficiency helps lower the cost per watt, good. If improved efficiency comes at even higher cost of the cell, it is probably an academic exercise. May be it would eventually lead to lower cost cell. But, till that happens, it is not important.
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I think what you mean to say is that "an increase in efficiency will generate a greater profitability for the same amount in real estate costs", but that's not quite the same thing, because in the second case [and real life] you're left with the same real estate cost.
There are cases where this becomes more relevant. For example, suppose we have a large, flat-roofed warehouse and decided to
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it will almost certainly be the case that the payment-per-unit we receive from our electricity supplier for a unit we sell to them is less than the cost-per-unit we would pay to the supplier for a unit we buy.
That is wrong.
If this were not the case, our supplier would run the risk of bankruptcy, since of course they have operational costs to cover and need profits to be able to do that.
And those costs are marginal as they have no costs in "fuel" or wear and tear, how ever they make their power. Feed in tar
Re:Efficiency is the most important thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to isolate a variable to do the analysis.
All you're doing is looking at one variable, noticing that there is another variable, and throwing your hands up.
Expect more from yourself. Leave the price the same, and change the efficiency. Do your analysis. Change the efficiency back, and change the price. Do the analysis again. Now you know how each one affects the cost per watt. Then you can consider the relative importance of the two variables.
The inputs are not free. The panels do not last forever. The capital costs are not only at installation, you have to average them over the life of the panels, plus maintenance. Increasing efficiency decreases the cost of operation. There is no way around that. It is always true in all forms of engineering. Nothing is free, and nothing lasts forever. If improving efficiency in one variable increased costs, it is almost guaranteed that you decreased efficiency in another variable; by more. All the costs are inefficiency. All labor cost is inefficiency. Mining cost is inefficiency; if mining was 100% efficient I could get the ore out of the ground for free. If smelting was 100% efficient, it would be free. If mining for diamonds was as efficient as mining for quartz, diamonds would be cheaper, and I could collect a few while I'm out hiking. It titanium mining was and processing was as efficient as iron there would be a lot less steel in my life.
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One might argue that efficiency is the most important thing when we're using more resources than the biosphere can sustain reliably.
Unless it requires unobtainium, an improvement in panel efficiency will lead to improvements in system efficiency. Right now a very good commercial panel is 20% efficient. Improving that to 30% means a substantial reduction in the number of panels, or in the size of panels. We just bought six 370W REC panels, and they are big SOBs. We could have bought four panels or the panels
Look at the Numbers (Score:2)
What is the cost of the initial investment?
What are my energy cost pre and post?
Does the system pay for itself + over the course of effective use / loan repayment period?
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Thanks Eisenstein.
Now redo that calculation when the panels cost 10% less because they are more efficient.
Holy shit! That's the point here!
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ok
What is the cost of the initial investment?
What are my energy cost pre and post?
Does the system pay for itself + over the course of effective use / loan repayment period?
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Not necessary and has geometry problems. (Score:3)
Could prisms be used to split the light and direct it to cells that are tuned to specific frequencies for vastly improved efficiency?
Yes but not cost efficiency. And think about the geometry if you want to collect the light across the whole surface of the panel. Where do you put the second full-area of cells (if the prism isn't also a focusing lens)?
But why bother? Just stack 'em. Put the high bandgap cell on top: The lower frequency light will just sail through to the lower bandgap cell on the bottom.
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But why bother? Just stack 'em. Put the high bandgap cell on top: The lower frequency light will just sail through to the lower bandgap cell on the bottom.
Which works extremely well, yielding 44% efficient solar cells available industrially right now. They're just excessively expensive.
And I use that word intentionally. Stacking a multi-band-gap solar cell is the same technology and techniques required to produce so-called 3D NAND flash cells, processes which are now cranking out billions of wafer stacks per year with depths of up to 96 layers. And the layer count is still going up.
Admittedly multi-band-gap solar cells require disparate chemistries, not pu
What's to allign? (Score:2)
How? A solar cell is a one, or a stack of, diodes about the width of the wafer. One collector electrode is the bottom surface, the other the top. The only pattern is the collector wiring of the top metalization, where there's a pattern of thick, narrow conductors to collect current from the thin transparent full-surface conductor layer, balancing low resistance with minimal shading of the cell from the sun.
The "Operational Context" Challenge (Score:2)
We are, however, facing an implicit challenge along with this breakthrough.
The average lifespan of a solar panel is 25-30 years. In many parts of the world, the installation of solar cells is so expensive that governments are actually offering subsidies, funded out of general taxation, as part of the plan to help them meet their greenhouse gas emission targets. But that panel life
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That's not what I heard, the good one's lose 0.5% of their efficiency each year meaning they could still have roughly 50% of their efficiency after a hundred years.
I personally am far more concerned that the panels can be made with as little pollution as possible and be as recyclable as possible AKA long term sustainability.
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I got this [sunrun.com] as the first hit (25-30 years, hence my earlier comment).
I found a few other sites saying the same thing, like here [greenbiz.com] and here [solarreviews.com], so it seemed a reasonable figure to quote.
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It's a stupid statement that isn't qualified, after 25 years panels still work but they simply output a bit less. If you've replaced electronics with more efficient electronics then there's a good chance that you don't need as much electricity after 25 years so why replace something that's working? Typically there's a few percentage of efficiency loss in the first handful of years and with good panels 0.5% or even less per year, that can mean that after 25 years some panels will still be producing 85% of wh
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The extra efficiency of perovskite [assuming there are no cost premiums to be paid for this new technology] means that we could replace panels every roughly 7.5 years instead of every 8. ... and last 50 or more.
Why would you replace your panels so often? The have a warranty of 30 years
disconnect between science and reality (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a very typical press release for a science paper. I'm a scientist and this kind of stuff is horrible. These are "grant manager" press releases designed to excite government grant managers and make statements that would never get through peer review in a journal article. It's dishonest.
For anyone who didn't catch it, they broke a record for a very particular type of solar cell. There are other solar cells with much higher efficiency. No where in there do they clearly or correctly articulate the reason for this type of cell (which is that perovskites can be printed, meaning they could potentially have a lower cost/energy than silicon... but there are still big manufacturing problems).
There's been tremendous progress in perovskite solar cell function and manufacturing over the last 10 years, but the gains have slowed down. The people trying to commercialize it are struggling. There's an opportunity to do something important with this technology. The problem that needs to be solved is scaling the manufacturing of completed cells (including encapsulation) while removing the lead from the manufacturing process and avoiding use of organic solvents. This paper doesn't help.
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Wow, the retardedness of the US of awesomeness, where it is "dishonest" to report a science break through.
Har har har har.
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"lead from the manufacturing process" - it's not part of the manufacturing process; it's part of the cells themselves. And lead-free perskovites are just rather poor converters compared to lead halide perskovites, unfortunately.
Cost per Watt Isn't the Only Thing (Score:3)
Disclaimer: I'm no solar expert, only beginning to do my own search for a system.
I see several posts here that seem to say So What...so here's one for them.
My home has a rather small area available to install panels. From what I've seen so far, most companies sell systems that are 15-20% efficient, with a few top end ones at 21-22%. Not that these cells will be available anytime soon, but they could provide between 50-100% more efficiency, and reduce the number of panels needed to power a home like mine by 1/3 to 1/2. As it stands currently, I'd still be reliant on the power company.
Multijunction Silicon cells have made higher (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a world record for perovskite cells.
Standard inorganic multijunctions have already hit almost 50%.
A milestone in perovskite Solar, but there are other competing technologies.
Every so often. (Score:2)
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Every so often we seem to read about breaktroughs in solarcells, batteries etc. Still i only see the same old garbage from China being sold and nothing really changes. What gives?
What gives is that in the last ten years or so typical off the shelf solar panels have increased in efficiency by about 25%, from around 15% to around 20%. The cost per watt has come down over that same time from around $1/W to about $0.50/W. Nothing changes, huh?
~30% ... bet you thought it was better right? (Score:2)
Crazy isn't it? I'll bet you thought solar was super efficient and clean ... unless you're a solar shill who poo-poos the crap efficiency and the environmental cost of producing the panels. You can't condemn the chip industry of horrific pollution without including solar panels in the lot, same tech.
Here's why it matters: we are in our current environmental predicament because we are an incredibly wasteful species. We can't avoid the consumption required for the basic necessities of life in the modern w
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Solar panel do not have/cause "horrible" pollution.
Actually they cause no pollution at all. Neither in production nor in usage.
No idea why /. ers repeat that myth over and over again.
What about mice? (Score:1)
$1 million per square inch? (Score:2)
Just guessing. Is this just for space probes, or does it help with our energy demands?
Re: But wait, what about the power of the atom? (Score:2)
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And even if perovskite eliminates a lot of the environmentally unfriendly production and disposal, you can extract enough solar locally to negatively impact local weather patterns.
Try thinking that one through again. It is that kind of statement which makes people doubt the sanity of proponents of nuclear power.
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Here I am. Even many of the green energy people are now admitting nuclear is part of the long term solution.
Which is dumb, because nuclear costs too much to be viable.
you can extract enough solar locally to negatively impact local weather patterns
lololololooloollll
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Wind farms kill migratory birds
Not in any meaningful amount.
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Was there something specific you needed to hear from us "shills"?
How about this:
How does solar power work at local midnight? Batteries you say? Those batteries come in hand for nuclear power to better match demand to load. Batteries won't save solar power, it will kill it. The numbers of batteries needed to last a night is an impossible expense. It's going to need a backup. Something that is equally low in CO2 emissions.. Something safe and abundant. Something domestically sourced.
Solar power is gre
You are SO understating battery tech. (Score:3)
Batteries won't save solar power, it will kill it. The numbers of batteries needed to last a night is an impossible expense.
You are SO understating battery technology. Battery tech, driven by pressure from electric vehicle requirements, is undergoing phenomenal improvement - in size, capacity, lifetime, and cost. Give it a couple more years and it's a whole new ballgame.
The main issue with soar and wind power is time-shifting it. Automotive electrical requirements dwarf those of, for instance, a house.
Ho
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The numbers of batteries needed to last a night is an impossible expense
My batteries last a night. They cost about £2000. That is not an impossible expense.
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Back in reality, batteries will remain prohibitively expensive, indefinitely. Nothing is even on the horizon, which is capable of compensating for intermittent renewables over a day, much less a season.
The delusion is strong in this one. He just told you his batteries already last a day. That's not on the horizon, that's installed. The additional lift for industrial capacity is therefore an incremental improvement, not some impossible dream. A big chunk of an individual's energy requirements can already be smoothed by batteries affordable for an individual. Industrial-scale applications are always cheaper. So you're deluding yourself. Industrial energy use per capita is not some giant leap over and
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How does solar power work at local midnight? Batteries you say? Those batteries come in hand for nuclear power to better match demand to load. Batteries won't save solar power, it will kill it.
Solar is cheaper than nuclear. In fact, solar + batteries is cheaper than nuclear. So if nuclear+battery and solar+battery do the same job, then solar is going to fucking kill nuclear.
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Solar power is great, but how much does it cost at local midnight.
Basically: nothing
At local midnight only my fridge is running, jumping on every ~30minutes for a few minutes.
My laptop, which uses max 70W, but usually much less, a LED light with 6W, and the gas heating has a pump, perhaps 300W? Which is jumping on about 3 time per hour for about 5 minutes.
I don't live in a factory: I live in a damn flat! And when I with my wife in Thailand we go to bed 23:00 - the only power we need at night is the fridge,
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Do you ever have anything to add to a conversation besides insults?
My guess is you don't get invited to many dinner parties.
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To a stupid parent?
No nothing to add.
If he does not grasp that night power is no problem without solar, how can it be one with solar, then he has mental problems, aka: is stupid.
And that is a fact and not an insult.
My dinner parties - outside of Covid - are just fine, but thanks for asking.