MeanEYE@lemmy.world 9 months ago
This has its own applications but I can’t say I’ve ever heard anyone complain about thickness of solar panels. Efficiency, power generated, etc. Sure.
Although the cells can only generate half the energy per unit area compared to traditional silicon panels, they can generate 18 times more power per kilogram, Fast Company reported.
For most users, I’d guess that unit area is more important. But for satellites, I suppose that as long as they can unfold, space isn’t really an issue. You’ve got all of outer space to spread out into. But weight determines a lot of the cost of putting the thing up in space, so you’d like that to be low.
If they’re cheap enough, you can just slap them on any available surface that gets a marginal amount of light. Doubly so if they’re flexible.
If you can print them on textiles they can literally be everywhere.
For anything other than house roof solar price per kw is going to be the deciding factor. Rural land is very cheap compared to solar panels - we’re talking about a 100:1 cost ratio.
Weight does play a huge role for satellites and to be honest I have very little knowledge of solar panels they use. However since solar sail is a thing, I’d argue surface is indeed a factor with satellites. But perhaps they managed to get some use there. There might be even other use cases I just didn’t think about. My original comment was mostly pointing out that thickness was rarely as big of an issue as it was efficiency.
Also I can’t imagine you’d want to add too much extra weight to a skyscraper
Use cases increase if they are thin. Instead of limited to rooftops. For example, take a look at what Aptera is doing.
Burning imvestor money on a DOA meme product just like Lightyear One did?
Ooof
Clearly you’ve never owned an air fryer wanted a solar powered car.
Those all sound like efficiency issues still. Covering any form of transportation with solar panels is primarily pointless because of how little power that would generate. Even if you covered every available inch with the most efficient panels invented, it would take over two weeks of sitting in full, direct sunlight to charge a solar-powered car, which you would drain in four hours of driving.
Where are you getting that two weeks number?
A car has maybe 55 sq. ft. available to panel. You get maybe 20 W/sq. ft. efficiency. An electric car has maybe an 80 kWh battery. A day has the equivalent roughly 5 hours of full sunlight.
Then you just multiply/divide everything together, and you get 14½ days.
Gotta be useful during the zombie apocalypse though. No more raiding gas stations and broken down vehicles.
solar farm on a stick
Also known as a “flag”
Ha! That could be it too, but I had meant more like a wrap around the pole.
First, the thickness factor plays into flexibility. Just imagine surfaces of every shape being covered in solar cells. Flexible panels could also be less prone to breakage.
Second, with “as rapid as printing a newspaper”, this might be a major cost-reduction thing, even on top of the process needing less high-pure Si material.
This might make solar power generation more attractive even if the efficiency would be lower than other methods, because this would drive the ratio $/kw down.
Kind of like these? Flexible solar panels are not a problem. And no, being newspaper thin will never be stronger than mounted on rigid surface. If it bends it has a definite limit in number of times you can bend it.
As for “printing a newspaper” and rapid production, when I see it I’ll believe it. At the moment it’s nothing more than speculation as they themselves have not made it yet. Every manufacturing process starts slow and then speeds up as process is optimized. The problem is whether there is a financial incentive to start producing in the first place.
By “flexible” I did not imply “use it as a hinge”. It was more like: “you can install it on a non-flat surface”, e.g. by gluing it down. Now that surface would provide the needed overall stability. Imagine having you cars roof and engine hood being completely covered in solar cells - or basically be a solar cell. No, you would not be able to drive it as an EV with the amounts of power provided, but it could trickle charge a battery, or power a fan in hot weather so the interior will not be boiling when you return to your vehicle after a day at work.
We already have the panel type which is glued on. But I guess it remains to be seen whether there’s a financial incentive to mass produce this.
Bulky, heavy, stiff, …
Which would all be a valid concern if you had to carry them all the time or bend them. There are flexible solar panels which you can glue on roof of your boat or car though.
Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I don’t think it’s so much about thickness, but being super thin presumably means it requires less of a manufacturing process and also less raw materials. Could bring costs down on panels and make them more financially viable for projects.
laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
On top of that, could make them viable for other surfaces that might not have been a good fit for them with current tech
PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Indeed, 44 lbs for an 8kw installation is very light.