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Promising new technologies, including more efficient photovoltaic cells that can harvest energy across the light spectrum, stick on solar cells and spray on solar cells have the potential to dramatically increase solar power generation in the next two decades. But major hurdles remain.
Today, despite recent progress, solar power accounts for about one percent of the world’s energy mix.
The answer, according to scientists and engineers, lies in a new generation of super-efficient, low-cost sunlight harvesters that take up where the recent flood of cheap silicon panels leaves off. New designs and novel solar materials have recently been setting new efficiency records seemingly every week. Although research and development of solar power still falls far short of where scientists and engineers say it needs to be, innovators are making steady progress in creating a new generation of materials that can harvest the sun’s energy far more efficiently than traditional silicon photovoltaic cells.
Glue on Solar Panels
Nextbigfuture looked at the detailed NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab) report and statistics of solar photovoltaic panel soft costs and how much the super-simple installation can reduce the futurecosts. Installation and permit-related expenses currently account for more than half of the overall cost of a new solar power setup. “By simplifying the system so that it’s like installing an appliance, we envision that the soft cost will be virtually eliminated,” says Christian Hoepfner, director of the Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems, which developed the system. Doing so would lower the cost of a typical residential solar installation from $22,000 to as little as $7,500, he says.
Kramer and colleagues have just invented a new way to spray solar cells onto flexible surfaces using miniscule light-sensitive materials known as colloidal quantum dots (CQDs)—a major step toward making spray-on solar cells easy and cheap to manufacture.
“My dream is that one day you’ll have two technicians with Ghostbusters backpacks come to your house and spray your roof,” says Kramer, a post-doctoral fellow with the Ted Sargent group in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, and IBM Canada’s Research and Development Centre.
Solar-sensitive CQDs printed onto a flexible film could be used to coat all kinds of weirdly shaped surfaces, from patio furniture to an airplane’s wing. A surface the size of your car’s roof wrapped with CQD-coated film would produce enough energy to power three 100-Watt light bulbs—or 24 compact fluorescents.
He calls his system sprayLD, a play on the manufacturing process called ALD, short for atomic layer deposition, in which materials are laid down on a surface one atom-thickness at a time.
A colloidal quantum dot solar cell is fabricated by spray coating under ambient conditions. By developing a room temperature spray coating technique and implementing a fully automated process with near monolayer control—an approach termed as sprayLD—an electronic defect is eliminated resulting in solar cell performance and statistical distribution superior to prior batch-processed methods along with hero performance of 8.1%.
$1,000 to build sprayLD
The approach requires a way to produce inexpensive, spray-paintable solar cells.
"We started by buying a few art store airbrushes," Kramer says, "and it kind of grew from there."
The scientists stopped by an art store near the university and purchased a few airbrushes for a little over $100. They also bought three spray nozzles, including one fine-mist type from a vendor who mostly services the steel mill industry.
The device they created, which looks like something constructed during a Junkyard Wars episode, cost a little less than $1,000 to build — solar cells not included.
Next, the scientists want to build a bigger version of the sprayLD device to test whether increased size will affect its performance. They also need to improve the efficiency of the solar cell material. The performance benchmark for solar energy is typically a product that can convert 10 per cent of the sun's energy into electrical energy. They need to increase from 8.1%.
Absolutely! It's job security in my field.Stick on solar panels, spray on solar, super-high efficiency solar and storage could boost Solar Power into a major energy source
Promising new technologies, including more efficient photovoltaic cells that can harvest energy across the light spectrum, stick on solar cells and spray on solar cells have the potential to dramatically increase solar power generation in the next two decades. But major hurdles remain.
Today, despite recent progress, solar power accounts for about one percent of the world’s energy mix.
The answer, according to scientists and engineers, lies in a new generation of super-efficient, low-cost sunlight harvesters that take up where the recent flood of cheap silicon panels leaves off. New designs and novel solar materials have recently been setting new efficiency records seemingly every week. Although research and development of solar power still falls far short of where scientists and engineers say it needs to be, innovators are making steady progress in creating a new generation of materials that can harvest the sun’s energy far more efficiently than traditional silicon photovoltaic cells.
Glue on Solar Panels
Nextbigfuture looked at the detailed NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab) report and statistics of solar photovoltaic panel soft costs and how much the super-simple installation can reduce the futurecosts. Installation and permit-related expenses currently account for more than half of the overall cost of a new solar power setup. “By simplifying the system so that it’s like installing an appliance, we envision that the soft cost will be virtually eliminated,” says Christian Hoepfner, director of the Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems, which developed the system. Doing so would lower the cost of a typical residential solar installation from $22,000 to as little as $7,500, he says.
Solar has a huge future ahead of it.
Mathew has never stated whether he owns where he lives. If you rent, you are not going to invest in solar.
Old Rocks said:However, advancements in solar power are of interest to most people, as we are right at the point where solar is becoming cheaper for the utilities than dirty coal, and will soon be cheaper than gas. So, just from that aspect alone, advances in solar are of interest to all of us.
In the biggest project since it acquired the solar cell giant SolarCity, the Tesla company will build a 13-megawatt solar farm on the island of Kauai, covering more than 44 acres (18 hectares). The solar cells will charge a 53-megawatt hour battery station able to provide most of the island's power at night. The batteries, called Powerpacks, will be built by Tesla's new Gigafactory.
Right now, Kauai residents are paying very high prices for energy, so the plan is to gradually transition to renewable sources, including wind and biomass. Kauai plans to generate 70 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2030 and to completely wean itself from fossil-generated electricity by 2045.
Tesla says that once it's in full production, the Kauai solar energy plant will lower the fossil fuel burn by over 6,000 metric tons a year.
Solar Energy Station to Power Hawaiian Island
Solar installations soared 97 percent to 14.8 gigawatts in 2016, according to a report released Thursday by Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association. The technology is cheaper than ever, with panel prices dropping 40 percent last year, and many utilities procuring solar on the basis of cost alone. But the dramatic drop in panel prices has hampered solar manufacturers' profits and ramped up competition for utility-scale contracts among developers, companies said in recent weeks while reporting fourth-quarter results. Add in a slowdown in the residential market, tax reform pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump, climbing interest rates and falling oil prices, and stock market investors remain skittish about solar.
2017 a transition year
Credit Suisse analyst Andrew Hughes said in a client note on Thursday that the key risk to his "outperform" rating on shares of residential solar player Sunrun was "investor sentiment, which in a rising interest rate and falling oil price market obscured by tax policy uncertainty remains tepid." The MAC Global Solar Energy index, which tracks shares of solar power companies, slid 43 percent in 2016. The index has recovered to gain nearly 8 percent so far this year but remains 65 percent below its year-ago level.
Electricians install solar panels on a roof for Arizona Public Service company in Goodyear, Arizona
U.S. module manufacturers and project developers SunPower and First Solar Inc are both viewing 2017 as a transition year for their businesses, they said after reporting in February losses for the fourth quarter of last year. SunPower Chief Executive Tom Werner in a conference call predicted "intense competition for the forseeable future in mainstream power plants," adding that some companies were selling panels at below cash cost.
A slowdown is forecast
