This Breakthrough Solar Tech is CHEAP & Printed Using Ink!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 มิ.ย. 2024
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If we want to see solar panels EVERYWHERE, we have to address the biggest thing holding them back: price. Current panels are getting cheaper and cheaper, but they are still out of the reach of many. What if we could print solar panels out on an ink printer? That's exactly what researchers are working on, and it's pretty wild stuff. But we know there are always drawbacks, so how do they compare to their benefits? How cheap could they make solar, and are they ready for prime time? DON'T Buy Solar Panels Until You Watch This!
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00:00 Introduction
00:50 Innovation
03:01 Solar Panels Comparison
04:38 Why Does it Matter?
04:53 Add
05:57 scale and Cost
08:39 Longetivity
What we'll cover
two bit da vinci,solar panels,solar power,solar energy,printable solar panels,renewable energy,ink solar panels,solar panels printed,ink printed solar,solar,solar panel,solar ink,ink printed solar panels,cheap solar panels,affordable solar,solar panels printed on plastic,printed solar panels australia,printed solar panel,printing solar panels,DON'T Buy Solar Panels Until You Watch This!,This Breakthrough Solar Tech is CHEAP & Printed Using Ink
#solarpanels #solarsystem #solarenergy #printedsolar #inksolarpanel #solarink #issolarexpensive #issolarworthit #is solar a good investment #solar in california #cheapsolarpanels #solarfuture #goingsolar #greenenergy #affordablesolarpanels - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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Ricky, well done with this video! I almost made the cardinal error of typing a comment before watching the whole video as it seemed you did not include the "service" cost of replacement every two years but you were on it like the pro you are. The only thing I wish you had added was a credible source of projections of anticipated change to durability and efficiency based on comparable technology. Were there none available? For example, I get that more established PV tech might not seem like a good analog so perhaps this sector will be watch and see... Agree with your conclusion that absent substantial improvements to durability applications will be niche (but there will be applications).
Not worth much over 2 minutes to learn about. 30 seconds, maybe?
If these things can be mass produced cheaply and reliably then they could easily replace silicon panels in some applications even if they don't last more than few years.
When you install solar panels on your roof the cost of the panels is almost irrelevant, as long as one understands the $100000/m2 experimental ones are not in the consideration. This is because in most places installing the panels costs more than the panels; I have calculated in some cases it has been $500+ per panel, while the panel itself cost only about $200. However, that is because silicon panels require a team of installers to work on your roof for few days just to install about twenty panels. If this stuff works properly you could probably cover your whole roof in solar film just by having one or two people spray some glue and unroll it on top, taking just few hours at most and costing much less than regular panels.
Let's say that costs $1000 and needs to be repeated every couple years, while your neighbor paid $15000 for equivalent traditional panels. In thirty years his panels are past their warranty and need replacement, and because installation is still the main part of the cost he needs to pay $15k again, which is not horribly expensive but can still be a problem for some people's finances. Meanwhile you have paid same $15k for your panels, but a thousand dollars every two years is much easier to handle.
@@AnalystPrime It actually makes sense to install this cheap solar by oneself since it won't last more than a year anyway. Proper installation of panels that are meant to last for 30 years make sense, but for solar that you will replace every year?
Just adhesive is good enough so it will stay put for 12 months and then replace after that. Since they are easily recyclable I don't see a problem with that.
I know that it can be frustrating to replace the solar every year, but you can save your electricity savings for the future so you will able to afford to install a long term solar solution later. It might take 10 years to do it though.
It's similar to ride a bike to work and put all the saving on gas to buy an electric car in the future.
@@SkepticalCaveman Exactly. Only likely problem is keeping the roll straight so the result does not look bad.
Well, that, and someone will probably glue it wrong way down...
I do love hearing about 15 year "overnight" successes. In their current form I can see these working for more temporary solutions, providing some power during the building process or a disaster. Over a few years with increases in longevity and efficiency these could become a nice entry level option.
Correct.
camping
During a flood emergency, I wonder if these panels can be designed to even float on top of water, just in case you don't have enough solid surface area?
yeah, absolutely great point... they might require some sort of support system but because they're so light it would be pretty easy. very interesting use case, and yeah totally make sense
@@TwoBitDaVinci Great Idea .. You can even deploy them on floating platforms to cover Reservoirs and reduce evaporation. it would be too costly and technically difficult to do that with rigid panels and Silicon flexible panels are even MORE expensive than rigids. But you put a Film of these things on Floating supports and cover Lakes like Mead and Folsom in California and you can Generate Electricity AND reduce evaporation. It would be better than those Black balls they floated over Ivanhoe Reservoir in LA. And once a year you can remove them, recycle them and deploy new ones during regular Dam/Lake maintenance periods.
Why not. We have flat boats called pontoon boats.
Installing regular panels on water is already a thing, these are much lighter so it is more an issue of tying them down to something so they don't float off with the current.
Might be easier to just stick some rods into the ground, tall enough they are above water, and hang the film from them like a fence.
Only issue with either idea is that solar panels are installed on an angle for a good reason, neither | or _ catches sunlight as well as /.
However, being easy to manufacture and transport in large amounts means we can just cover a few square miles with these things anytime we need to.
🤙
Have you done a video on the company that does hybrid solar panels, where it’s basically your normal photovoltaic array on top of a radiator that water is run through to capture all that heat energy the PV cells can’t catch. I wonder what the theoretical efficiency of that system would be? Used with heat pumps it could even have a positive COP?
With the additional benefit of cooling the solar panels that’s pretty awesome. Cooler cells would stay closer to the ideal efficiency. It would vary a lot how efficient the entire system is because the heated water would be most useful in cold climates and less useful in hotter climates where you have more sun.
It has potential as a camping tent or emergency shelter that also provides energy generation and with a built in lil battery and some lights inside and out, you got a base camp in a bag for $500
Yes! Also what’s up man!
@@TwoBitDaVinci not much man! Walking with the dogs at the moment 🐕, thinkin i might go bug Scott on Twitter about that space drive 🚀 👩🚀
These panels could be used as a very cheap way to power small electronic appliances, like smart ID chips in a sticker on consumer goods.
Like to allow automatic pricing and checkout in a supermarket or to keep track of storage conditions to determine freshness.
It could be used on toys or the old melody happy birthday card, without batteries which are both the most expensive and most polluting parts.
Anything that just needs a little bit of power and currently has to be fed with button cell batteries that often get thrown in the trash.
I think this could be a great solution for the developing countries like Africa. It could be printed locally and recycled when it is needed. Could also serve as shade for plants to protect them from harsh sun exposure.
yeah that's true it could definitely serve a purpose
Panels are only part of solar installation. There’s also the inverter and electrical work to connect system (either grid or off-grid) to power the house. Less expensive panel technology is great, but it’s just the start of building a functioning home solar system.
i've actually got a tiny one of these that I got sent years ago as a demo, really cool to see it finally reaching market.
In the current form certainly not perfect for everyone but there's a lot of people in Australia (and everwhere) who live in rural areas with lots of land without infrastructure connections, being able to roll out some solar and tack it to the roof of a barn would enable them to keep small battery operated systems running year-round which would be ideal for monitoring systems or automation.
Another potential use as they're so much lighter than conventional wafer based PV would be for small electric boats, you could go out onto the lake with the sheet rolled up then float it between two inflatable pontoons - could provide any power you need for small devices while you're relaxing, also if it was set like a catamaran it might not even cause too much drag so you could use it while moving. It could be a great accessory for a camper van too, maybe even a small one for a hiking backpack, when you're relaxing in the sun roll it out - maybe even prop it up on poles to get the best angle and to make a shaded little shelter. It wouldn't need to make much power if it's charging a usb powerbank or just replacing what you use from the car battery with lights, phones, laptops, etc.
It's nice to know we've crossed the 'good enough' threshold for solar, in general, and it only gets better from now. Innovations like this are a bonus, and undoubtedly we can get the pigments far more efficient and durable.
Could be useful for things like greenhouses
Yes omg this can power aquaponics easy
wow I didn't think about that one, but yes!
That was my thought too. 1-2 years is about how long some of the greenhouse plastic lasts anyway. If this didn't cost too much more, it could be a nice addition to greenhouses and tunnels. It could even be put on pergolas and other garden structures.
Prof Paul Dastoor with the Univ of Newcastle has made 3-D printable solar paneling that can be put on thin film. They have already partnered with chep, an Australian shipping company to test pilot the program. They use a semi conductive liquid ink that is put into a 3-D printer. This gets costs down to $10 per square meter. They are 300 times lighter than panels & use adhesives to apply. They are unfortunately only about 3% efficient currently & last only about 1-2 years. Keep in mind, this is the first generation.
Great video as always! I actually just started writing a script for a video about these too 😅 Hopefully I can come at it from a different angle and still add something to the conversation!
I love your channel! Been watching for a while you make great stuff!
They might not be the one-size-fits-all option we want them to be but because of their cost and innovation I definitely see them having a niche application in more than just the ways you mentioned. "My First Solar Kits" for kids would be a good start so that every child as the basic understanding and skills to learn how solar power works from their very own panel that might be hooked up to say a Raspberry Pi or something similarly simple and plug and play ready...
After a long day at work, I was falling asleep sitting in a chair watching TH-cam.
Until I started watching your video.
I love your videos.
As well you did great on fully charged!
Please keep making content !.!.!.
made my day thank you James :) you bet sir!
Interested in what kind of applications this will be used in. Disaster relief is a pretty good idea! I should need a new roof in the next few years, considering those GAF/Timberline shingles that are coming out. Keep up the content!
Replace your roof with a heavy duty metal one on top of a heat barrier and anchor it down even more with hurricane straps. You won't get good cell phone reception indoors, but that roof won't need replacing either. There are 150-yr-old metal roofs still in great condition. Since my internet's via fiber optic cable, I just got Skype for indoors in order to receive incoming calls. I *can* call out on cell though at most I only get one bar. But it's enough. Beats having a crappy 20-yr shingle roof.
I could see a case for short term solar power generation in the field for very remote work sites. (Once the efficiency and lifespan improves a few hundred %)
Eg a work site hundreds of miles from anything in the Outback. Instead of trucking in diesel for a generator every few days, just unfurl (and tie down) a few 100m X 2m long rolls over the bare ground. Power the equipment in the trailer for a few weeks.
Awesome video. Part of the reason I haven’t pulled the trigger on solar yet is because of the constant improvements being made. I don’t wanna be outdated the day I install them. But I guess that goes for most current technology
Solar has a hard wall limit on efficiency,you aren't going to miss out on anything. It will be decades before home solar gets much better if even it ever does.(it'll improve in efficiency but not by enough to make the cost worth the extra amount.)
@@relicboxing thanks for the info!
I remember watching a video about these ink printed solar panels 15+ years ago. I'm surprised they still haven't advanced to the market since then.
Great approach to solar electricity production.
Those panels have a lot of transparent areas…. I wonder if they could benefit from double stacking the panels and offset them by just the distance of one cell so all it’s surface area is black. I’m sure it won’t double the efficiency, but it could increase it enough to still be economically viable (especially if they bake that into the manufacturing process)
love where your head is, you're totally right, that's a quick way to bump efficiency up a bit more... perovskite is another... there's promise for sure!
Longevity not a problem for occasional portable use (on a recent car-free vacation, I sometimes needed to hypermile my e-bike to stretch the range) - imagine unfurling a roll of solar-cells to top-up the battery...
Technology in solar panels is really moving fast, and new amazing designs are coming. With cost going down, it will be really exciting to see how efficient solar panels are getting!
Great video with a lot of useful information, thank you for sharing! ☀🔌⚡🚘
10:33 putting on cars will never work with 3% efficiency and 2 to 3 year life.
So solar panels made by 3M?
increase efficiency by printing multiple materials on the same r2r process by rewinding the roll and selecting materials with different band gaps to apply to a more durable substrate like willow glass
Thanks!
been around for years , got a lot better recently
Rolled up, this material could be a portable go-anywhere power source, easy to roll out on location for on-site power and vehicle charging.
Yah absolutely. Something temporary as opposed to static for sure
I can see these being a useful option to cover roofs after hurricanes if they combined it with the blue tarp. Some Power and rain protection in one go.
I have seen this in the Netherlands years ago. I have been in the factory doing test production. Never heard of them again.
It would be good to make a sail on a sailing boat out of those panels. Then having an electric drive on a sailing boat becomes more practical.
So perfect introducing
Years ago, a Canadian company called ATS had a solar division. They produced flexible solar cells.
Unfortunately, there wasn't a market for the product at the time and the company sold the technology and stopped running.
Perfect for camping in the middle of nowhere.
True!
Ricky, nanosolar tried printing on an aluminum substrate around 2010. Might be worth a look -
Thanks, Dan
If you could keep each string of cells short enough, run them alongside roadways and other large infrastructure.
Application/re-application would be relatively simple periodically as a part of inspections.
The power could be used to provide short range internet cells in areas with spotty coverage, or as a tertiary power source for track signals systems, or even to keep AEDs charged up in remote locations.
I think this technology would certainly be useful as It sits for big warehouses, trains, things with a lager surface area than a residential roof and community grid style solar plants, then as the technology and efficiency evolves the variety of use will follow, what i think is important to remember with ALL alternative energy and green solutions is that there will never be only 1 our best bet is pairing as many as possible
Is this a potential disruptor that could put existing solar out of business? Also, US homes are arguably oversized compared with European homes, and what about powering city homes? This suggests it’s a solution for suburbs at best, if not mansions? I’d like to see these on the sides of office buildings and factories, but at such efficiencies, it will barely nibble at the total power consumption of these buildings. Just because something is ‘cool’ it doesn’t mean it will work. Good video and it’s made me think.
Hmm as an add-on to agriculture eg as part of greenhouses… this actually makes sense
Nice discussion..
Do they degrade due to light? Perhaps crazing of the plastic surface or maybe UV causing a chemical reaction in the semiconductor?
Or is the degradation due to weather?
Supercool! I am wondering: 1) how much organic material is needed per cartrdige and how much m2 a cartridge can print? Cheers
that's a great questino... until they can make them last at least 5-10 years... I think they need to work on the chemistry of it... then yeah costs and material considerations. also lets hope they can keep the materials simple and cheap!
Good video!
The price advantage is misleading. A regular solar panel lasts >20 yrs. In the same period of time, you'll need to replace the printed panels ~10 times over, costing $20K in place of $8.4K. But it's a promising technology that can definitely be able to challenge regular panels with adequate effort and goodwill (goodwill cos, companies these days are hell-bent to make things that die soon rather last long).
As it currently stands, it's 2.3 times more expensive per Watt(over it's predicted life span) than regular panels. Meaning that that you'll be losing money unless you are paying more than 12 cents per KWh. The tech is not new, I remember there being a portable scroll style solar panel some years ago, but it looks like it's still too expensive for wide adoption.
Just curious - Would you happen to know if a solar panel stored under cover in its original box will start degrading b4 it's hooked up out in the sun? Several years ago when I knew even less about solar than I do now, I was already fascinated and bought a system with those inverters that aren't good for electronics. They weren't pure sine wave - which I didn't know was crucial at the time. Anyway, b4 I could hook it up I found out and wound up selling the inverter. (There was no power generator like today's all-in-ones.) But I kept the solar panels for future use. Now I have a couple EcoFlow Rivers which should power my essentials long term in an extended emergency; yet I don't want to wear them out either b4/unless faced with a dire situation. So those solar panels are STILL boxed up and stored. Making it pretty important to know whether the solar panels are aging already. I realize they're outdated technologically, but I mean as to their useful life. ...... Meanwhile, although the grid power's fairly expensive in a remote tiny town, by traditional passive means my costs remain quite modest even in a 2200 sq ft 1890's Vic. Everything's also LED, Energy Star etc. My entire city bill each month is well under $100; so comparatively low that when I first moved here to retire, they sent out a repairman to make sure I hadn't monkeyed with the meter!
@@frostyfrances4700 whilst well kept panels might last 20 years or more in storage I wouldn't save solar panels for future use. If you can, use them now. With the money that you save you can afford new panels sometime in the future and the experience of using solar through all seasons year after year might be be useful in the future.
@@longdang2681 - Thank you for your very kind and wise advice. Part of the delay is bc my energy costs are already so low and it would be a long time b4 I could save up for what the future might offer. So for me, stuck at 76 in TinyTown as I am, the main solar advantage is for a grid down. Which we've never had here in my 18 yrs that lasted for more than 12 hours. The local power plant has been rebuilt and we're also coupled with regional systems. If they fail, it wouldn't be more than 24 hours b4 we were independently brought back for just local use on our own equipment. Spare parts have been set by just in case. For all the savagery most people around here exhibit due to politics, the town has somehow been run exceptionally well when it comes to that. By the time I bought yard frames and paid for everything to be hooked up, I'd be lucky to break even when you factor in wear and tear on the equipment. Also, at 76 I might not even BE here 20 years from now! :) Or at least might be past doing much.
Nice !!!
What about getting some to power the pump of pools? My above ground pools only uses less than 5 amps. I don’t know how many watts that is….. but it currently runs on 110volts. But I think the motor has a converter in the junction box….. so maybe these would work fine! I would be happy to be a trial!!!
Given that they are translucent they could possibly be layered on top of each other furthering the area/angle at which Solar energy is captured.
I remember 20 yrs ago or sooner that I saw fibers were created for solar capture to create light in fabric.
Just imagine the area of parking lots around supermarkets and malls Which would get Solar roofs. It provides shades for the car and generate electricity and with its enormous area the potential is huge.
If the 'racking' for the printable cells was designed right, it could easily be a 'do-it-yourself' installation after 2 years when new panels are needed. So the cost is really only the cells. Which would be a LOT less than the initial installation. But they doo need to triple efficiency so the panel fields don't cover whole yards lol.
An aluminium roll has a surface area of 22.5m^2. Assuming 1kW/m^2 at a 3% efficiency and we get a cool 675W of power in a package the size of an aluminium roll. At a cost of 10$/m^2 that would work at $220USD to produce.
Everything about this product reminds me of a solar panel manufacturer that was headquartered in Ames, Iowa at least 10 years ago. They were also printing their flexible panels & they also positioned their solar panels as perfect for use in natural disasters, relief efforts, & by the military for powering their advanced command centers.
What really makes the sense of deja vu so strong is that their printed solar cells had the same problems that these panels have: poor efficiency & short life standards. In fact, I’m not sure their solar efficiency number weren’t better than this version.
Are they looking at wave guides in the protective layers that can propagate the full length of the panel sheet? Imagine fiber optic panels that carry the light to cells on the less sunny sides of the house?
I will wait for thin film perovskites (hopefully printed) which can handle multiple bandwidth spectrum of light.
yeah absolutely that would be a great step forward
The roof is not the only place to put them. How about covering your garage door with them or the wall of your house or garage or fence?
Yah very true! Get life up to 10 years and this is a slam dunk
This is what I was thinking too. Or as seen in a clip towards the end, it could be used as greenhouse material.
It also makes me wonder about an idea I saw a while back, about doing covered parking with it, or some other large-scale application like that. iirc, those applications didn't make sense because of the cost at scale. But maybe these would present a different balance of that equation.
The film panels can fold out or up when you need it
Yah very true
Maybe they could work on some structure to put the pannel and replace it quickly. Like you know, they provide you with rolls of pannels, and every two years, you just unroll to next section. Thus you increase the overall lifespan of the solution without having someone replacing the pannels.
It still have a problem in lifespan and efficiency though.
light enough to go on our roof too probably.
That lifetime is estimated by continuous sun exposure? I'm asking because they might be a nice and lightweight travel power source, if you only use it a few weeks per year and doesn't degrade with time or moisture could be useful.
Yes it is. If you were to just use it here and there it’ll last much longer
How does it hold up in weather .
You could blanket vast areas of seasonal type that need shade with this, like an outside cattle shelter, fields of shade-loving plants and farmer's summer markets. Instead of a niche, I think the applications for such a short lifespan and inefficient BUT cheap panels will be almost endless. With economies of scale and product development, these will get cheaper and have longer life. This technology will be one solution in a palette of sustainable energy solutions.
So many news about "solar breakthrough", one record after another but yet they are still far from mass production and mass availability - heck even regular solar cells are scarce at the moment
I hope this works panels that cost a tenth of present panels will be a game changer even 3percent is better than nothing? The short lifespan is the only hurdle get them up to 20 years would be the key to success
If they are flexible, strong, waterproof, and possibly float, they would be great dragged behind a sailboat at sea to generate additional electricity. Then rolled back in for storage when not in use. 2 years is still an issue for longevity.
This technology was developed by a US university about 12 years ago. They even created a corporation but ended up selling the out to the Chinese. Good to see another university rediscovering it maybe they wont sell out this time.
Or a deck awning
What about using them as shades?
This technique of printing solar-active substance on plastic, could it be rethinked as mold it inside the plastic to make solar-active filament/Textile…..?
early with critical limitations, but promising approach :)
Maybe they will be able to find different chemistries in new iterations that make them last longer and more efficient as they make them. Still early.
That’s my hope!
It’ll be great to run a blimp powered by this.
SAULE a Solar company from Poland produced mostly Pervoskite Solarpanels and also printable Pervoskite Solarpanels
So need solar on my Fishroom and house.
If it was possible to install that solar solution yourself, then it wouldn't matter if you have to replace it once a year as long as it costs less than the savings you make during that year.
Using them for, say, 10 years might actually save you so much money that you can upgrade to a more permanent solar solution.
So by starting small you can gradually upgrade with the savings.
I think this would be great for laying over fields. Defs not for single family homes. Imagine putting it over a school football field when not in use!
Space based solar? They are lightweight. Large area is not an issue. Not too much need for strong structural support, in low gravity environment. No weathering, hence, longer lifetime. Also, easily printable, for in situ manufacturing.
Open questions might be, (1) performance in high heat or cold conditions, (2) how to handle micro-meteorites. (3) weight of copper wiring over a large area (microwave beaming?)
Are there any solar panel systems that can be installed on a driveway? Many homes have more driveway surface area than a roof and easier access for maintenance.
Something a car can run over? Interesting… good point about availability. Plus it would get so hot!
I wonder if they have tried sandwiching these things under/between layers of glass or something similar to increase the lifespan. And embedding some refractors within the glass to as to direct/focus more of the sunlight into the printed solar cells might up the efficiency somewhat. If they can be custom tunes for specific wavelengths of light, then maybe they can stack them according to varying wavelengths and thus also increase efficiency. Both of these things are done with standard PV cells.
Yah for sure… though it defeats a lot of the benefits
@@TwoBitDaVinci well, maybe glass wasn’t the best choice of wording. But there are flexible and lightweight clear materials it could be sandwiched between. That’s more of what I meant. Not sure why “glass” jumped off my fingers. Lol
What about on a window roller blind?
Dollar tree or General for solar. Cool!
Maybe one day?
Cars are high value high energy consumption low area devices the challenge with cars is to produce worthwhile amount of energy almost regardless of cost. The opposite of the benefits of printed cells
perhaps we could re imagine offshore wind farms to primarily supply wave suppression for floating solar while also still producing significant wind power
Is this perovskites based ink?
Not clear if the Ink lasts 2 years or the material it is printed on??
Sounds fun but 1 really strong wind will destroy them.
If not how much will it worpe in high heat.
I think its to flexible to be really all that good.
Ya 3% is not enough and the price well i don't have 30 years for something that lasts 1 to 2 years.
Like I will put something that lasts 30 or more years but if it lasts 1 to mybe 3 years then zero point.
Hi I’m from Belgium and when we hire a company to play a solar installation it cost between € 0,75-,90/watt. So I don’t know if iets is that much cheaper at this moment
that's amazing, I don't know why the US is so expensive!
Without the protective mounting case, they would never survive in a 'permanent application'...out in the open, one hail storm will destroy the circuits within them. Considering the 'traditional long-term' cell designs, I'm also not sure what high UV would do to them, either. Keep in mind, one of the oldest, yet longest-lasting processes to make PV cells, is to lay a small pane of glass down, then the 'negative' (something like grafoil), then a non-conductive saturated in an electrolyte (such as a thick paper towel in salt water), then a fine copper wire mesh that has been 'red oxidized' (heat over 240C for 20 minutes). Then, your positive pole is the copper mesh, and the negative would be the grafoil. Lasts for 10-20 years, and with tempered glass, is relatively durable...average yield: 15-watts per ft^2. This foil in the video looks like something you'd get at the Dollar Tree for $1...and last MAYBE 1-year. You MOST CERTAINLY could make solar cells (at watts per sq. ft.) cheaper than this.
That is very interesting Skeeter. Do you happen to have a link to a how to vid/article for the method you describe?
Have you looked at those new panels by GAF the Timberline Solar system. I would like to know how good they actually are.
I have checked them out... honestly I'm not a big fan... they aren't all that good looking, with ridges to cover the wires, and more complex in the future etc... I'm going with a standing seam metal roof and traditional solar for maximum flexibility and the ability to do it myself :)
the obvious application is an 8' wide and 53' long panel "glued" onto the roof of semi trailers. Trailers are refurbished and repainted every few years and the roof patched. Here is a simple low cost way to "seal" the entire roof and get solar power to boot. Refrigerated trailers need the power on the reefer units and weight is always in issue on reefer trailers (frozen food is VERY heavy per pallet). so a typical trailer is full to weight when only 2/3rds full spacially. - in an application where weight is critical.
Nice thought, but I doubt the power would be sufficient. Possibly traditional panels would out price the 4 cylinder diesel compressors they use now.
That $US8400 price bothers me, really don't understand why it's so expensive in the US. Just recently got a 6.6kw system (typical max here in Perth AU with our grid) and it cost about $AU6000 (minus $AU2400 from renewable energy credits "STCs") ... so about $AU3600 for panels, inverter and installation ==> $US2500. A previous system on another house 8yrs ago was $AU8200 / ~$US5600.
What if they would stick them, between two glass panels? They should last much longer, no?
Interesting… possibly yeah! Lots of the benefits of being cheap and easy to use would go away too though
this is great please tell me more and get me the information please
If they could last longer , would be great for camping , campervans , mobile homes off grid, but 2 years is far from being good enough
Have you ever heard of a company called NanoSolar? They were talking about this printing years ago.
Panels that are flexible, light and cheap that don't get destroyed by the sun is the holy grail for me, current flexible panels are garbage compared to regular solar panels that just keep getting better, but they also keep getting bigger and heavier, some are about 30kg each now. You can imagine how some roofs couldn't take the weight of an array of them.
I don't know .. I mean people Put up and take down Christmas decorations every year. If they can devise a way to quickly (and non invasively) put these up and take them down, I can still see them being used. They just become another home owner's task like changing the furnace filter, replacing the smoke detector batteries, seeding and fertilizing your lawn .. that sort of thing. You can have someone just come up once a year, roll the old ones out and put up a new roll. I mean sure, I would love for them to be more efficient and last for longer. But I still can see "disposable" solar panels being a thing in some cases. I don't know.
good point Jon, to your point about christmas lights, maybe a mount system on the edge of your roof maybe tying into the roof edge or gutter... could be easily (somewhat) taken down and up... lots of options... why I like things like this. We can dream up all sorts of use cases
@@TwoBitDaVinci Exactly. I don't think we should dismiss these with that price per Watt. Their flexibility and low price can be a huge advantage if you figure out a way to deploy them and replace them quickly. Even if you replace them once a year on a regular basis (so long as they are recyclable), if it's something you can do (or have done for you) in an hour or two, it's worth it. Examples: Pool covers, topper for older covered parking lots. The possibilities are endless.
One point. Using the average square feet of a home to determine the average available roof space, would ignore that many (most?) homes are not a single story.
about 20 years ago a company called "nanosolar" started printing solar film like newspaper and sold a lot of it to germany. they don't exist today. i don't know why, but suspect the film didn't
last very long.
I wonder how thier road trip is going?
Being light weight, flexible and easy to install, who says they have to be installed on the roofs? for how i see it, they could be installed everywhere, on tree trunks, fences, posts, outer walls, etc, etc.
SO, my dream is to be able to charge my electric unicycle out in the bush via a solar tarp, tis product sounds some what along the lines I require. Yes triple watts is needed.