better cheaper solar panels

Nanosolar has developed proprietary process technology that makes it possible to produce 100x thinner solar cells 100x faster.

www.nanosolar.com
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looks promising..

 

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It didn't have the efficiency ratings nor the cost per watt either.:shrug:

 

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"Based on our cell and product design innovations, Nanosolar is capable of delivering high-power solar panels with 5-10 times higher current than other thin-film solar panels on the market today."

That's from the site, and unfortunately about as specific as they get

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Efficiency is somewhere between 10-15%, cost per watt is $.9 verse an average for USA coal at $1 per watt (not including extras), and productions cost for nanosolar is $.3 so they are making a very good profit. So far this is what nanosolar claims, to really believe it we will have to wait until these bastards start selling these thing publicly instead of to private companies in fenced of multi-megawatt solar power plants.

Of course if solar and other renewables take up more than 15-25% of the electric market we will start having to start adding in the price of grid energy storage systems. Imagine power plants consisting of titanic batteries (sodium sulfur or vanadium cycle) that suck in extra power from the renewable when they are overloading the grid and dumps it off when the grid needs it most.

 

Not if the companies sell power to one another over an interconnected grid, which is what we have in place in the United States. The coal and nuclear plants can be run at higher rates at night, or whenever the demand requires it, and be ramped down when alternative sources are handling demand.

This is already what happens in some markets that allow solar paneled houses to send excess energy back into the grid where it is used elsewhere, while the conventional plant produces that much less power. If you scale this up so that, say, 30% of the homes are producing all their own power needs and sending the excess back into the grid, the power companies can produce much less electricity and still make a profit off of other people's power in exchange for maintaining the lines and infrastructure.

It is the Wiki/YouTube future of power generation, where the user becomes a producer. It makes the Communist ideal of having the general population take control of massive production facilities look quaint and out-dated.

 

I understand your argument but the the existing USA grid infrastructure can not transmit that much power efficiency over thousands of miles, and upgrading the infrastructure would be as expensive as grid storage. Also base load power plant (which represent the majority of our power infrastructure) incapable of changing production on the fly (which is why off-peak power is cheap because the power plants are cycling extra power simply because they can't slow down for the night). What you talking about reducing (at first) is the power consumption from inefficient peak-load power plants by supplementing some of the grid demand with renewable so the peak load plants aren't burning gas as often. After the 15-25% margin is replaced with renewable though the timing of power by the renewable makes for the need for grid storage, as your going to have significant times of grid overload and significant times of grid under load and the existing infrastructure simply can't transport an overload of that magnitude in one state to and under load states away. Grid storage is the only way to solve this problem (even long range electricity transport solutions such as superconductor line is also grid storage: as the lines can store and incredible amount of magnetic flux, as well as pump liquid hydrogen from point A to B.) Also in the long run grid storage forgoes the need for inefficient dirty peak-load plants altogether, as storage plant is peak-load plant.

Give me some time and I'll find the DOE report on the 15-25% margin for radical change to our infrastructure. Another interesting thing is PHEV and BEV can also double time as grid storage, as they are on average plug in most of the day they can be designed to suck power when the grid is over loaded and trickled back when the grid is underloaded, but this requires smart chargers, not really expensive but questionable on imposing on the will of the owner on letting the grid decide when to charge (and even discharged) s/he car. Imagine if the big bad government (or in this case the electric utilities) had a siphon in your gas tank and were adding or taking fuel when ever they liked. Your car could even in theory be commandeered in a power emergence: say new york is in a another black out, well to keep the city lite ever electric car is commandeered to drain their batteries dry into the city, leaving you stranded (although thankfully not in a dark city). I would not mind the sacrifice for the greater good but I'm sure others would.

 

Just keep in mind that this may be a pipe-dream that takes decades, if ever, to achieve. Even if PV panel efficiency is increased by several 100% (which is highly unlikely), they cannot produce more than a fraction of the power consumed by the average residence.

Yes, some eco-freaks (and I don't intend that term to be derogatory at all) manage to sell back a few KWh each month, but they are very much in the minority and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Plus, there aren't that many hours of peak insolation at most locations around the world. Even light cloud cover - not to mention heavy clouds and rain - greatly reduce panel output. And, of course, they only work during the daytime. Residential usage tends to peak in the evenings when people come home from work/school and start turning on lights, TVs, cooking and bathing. On-site storage batteries are VERY expensive along with inverters and are priced out of reach for the average homeowner - especially when you consider their useful lifespan before they have to be replaced.

 

On-site storage batteries are VERY expensive

Net- metering

 

Pure BS. The only limitation is price per watt, a solar cell may have a photovoltaic efficiency of 1%, but if cost as much as air and we could make gigawatts of it and it last for any appreciable time, than its efficiency does not matter. If we could make cheap solar panels and place them in just our roads (not including roof space or open desert and bad lands) we could cover 300% of USA electricity needs at an photovoltaic efficiency of 15%, (or 100% at 5%); the only question is at what cost: If nanosolar's claims are true we already have such a solar panel with lifetime watt performance price less then coal!

http://www.solarroadways.com/The Numbers.htm

 

Nope, you're the one spreading BS here. Nonosolar's claims are very much in doubt and so are your thought on the matter. PV panels can NEVER become as cheap as air - that's just nonsense!

Also, your link pretends to use real numbers - yet makes a lot of brash assumptions. Are you prepared to defend them?

 

Well, just so you know, I lived off the grid for 5 years with a wind generator and a bank of 8 6-volt golf-cart batteries (4 pairs paralleled together for a 12-volt system). A guy that I worked with for 2 years is in his 60's and has been off the grid for over 30 years with just propane and solar cells.

My wife and I want to get back on a sailboat in about 5 years, which will move me back off the grid, hopefully for the rest of my life. And if people were comfortable living in smaller homes, it would make the feasibility for more people to provide their own power even greater.

 

Sure, I not at all trying to say it cannot be done.

But if you look around just a little, you'll find that you and your friend probably represent something less than 0.000001% of the population. The average homeowner STILL wants his larger house, his electricity-gobbling devices and does NOT want to fool around with PV panels, inverters and battery strings.

Another major deterrent for most people is the costs involved - they simply couldn't afford all that expense, even if they wanted to.

 

I never said they could become as cheap as air, your confusing an exaggerated example for principle explanation for fact, that was simply to demonstrate that cost per watt is the all important factor. Now you may doubt nanosolar claim and I don't blame you, but I'll repeat they claim cheaper than coal "holy grail" less than $1 per watt ($.9 watts at a $.6 per watt profit). Now if you want to argue that those numbers are of no use for the massive growth of solar, by all means I would love to hear it. If you want to deny those numbers are real then we have nothing to discuss as we will simply have to wait and see if they are real or not.

I could cite more modest DOE reports it you like but you will have to give me time to search for them, if not you can: http://www.greencarcongress.com/

 

check it out:

http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology...could-be-key-to-low-cost-solar-cells-10548-1/

Cheaper materials! Yay

 

Is it really cheaper?

Also take note on Entech's solar concept, which embodies a Fresnel lens onto a small amount of PV with a heatsink. The intensity of the radiation is not enough to degrade the PV, and the heating is not enough to affect the electrical (internal) resistance considerably.

 

I dont know because the article didnt say diddly about anything. Just hot air. I looked at the entech design and I'm all go. We should really push for this technology(solar, in general). The coal and natural gas lobby is going to fight everyone in America for this. Hopefully there is some grace and purity left in our policy makers.

 

Got a couple of questions about solar power:

Assuming you wanted to run a normal house with all the normal energy gobbling appliances (making absolutely no compromises), how big of a storage bank would you need?
My current calculations are at around 9600 amp-hours (400 amps over 24 hours)......which translates to 436 golf cart batteries (22 Ah at 12 volts). However, I don't know if it could be optimized and you would need less based on the number of peak-sun, and routine spikes in consumption (the family is only home at the early morning, larte after noon, and night - but night is lower consumption).


Also --- how many solar panels would you need to reasonably refill the bank daily?

 

You are calculating in terms of charge. The separation of charge requires work, which is energy. Redo the figure in kWh and you will be a lot closer to the answer.

The periodical "home power" is very useful for answering these sorts of questions.

 

Based on where I live I get ~4.5kwh/m^2/day of sunlight for solar power. Assuming a power load of 5KW or 120Kwh/day and a solar cell + power converter efficiency of 13% I would need 205m^2 of solar panels to break even. Assuming I want full power year round I either want batteries that can provide extra power for months (impossible expensive) or more solar panels and batteries that can provide a maximum of a day of power. Ideally I would like to simply dump my extra power on to the grid (and get back power from the grid when I needed it) and let the power companies deal with the batteries, a titanic stack of sodium-sulfur cells in a battery power plant would be cheaper then everyone with there own lead acid batteries, even considering the inefficiencies of having to go through the power converters twice.