Slashdot Mirror
Solar Panels As Building Clothing
Makarand writes "A Canadian company is developing a
flexible solar-power generating material that can be
draped over any building. This will allow buildings with curves and complex
shapes to use solar panels. The new material is made of silicon beads,
each acting as a solar cell, placed between two aluminum foils and sealed on the sides
with plastic.
The manufacturing process for the silicon beads can use waste silicon
from the chip-making industry. The material has an overall
efficiency of 11 per cent which is comparable to the performance of
conventional photovoltaic cells. The material looks like blue denim
and architects might love to work with it."
How long until we can start wearing these/powering laptops with them ?
1. The panels are only usable in some applications due their overall effeciency (quoted as 11% for this stuff) that you can only use it in very sunny places.
2. The cost per kilowatt hour is still not compariable to some very environmentally unfriendly stuff.
So its nice that they have stuff that the architects like for curved surfaces but for the rest of us with smooth flat roofs and commercial buildings with flat sides and roofs, it would be nice to get some panels that have higher effeciency and have lower cost per kilowatt hour.
At least until you see the price tag that comes with it vs. conventional panels. ;)
How will you power your wearable computers, palm pilots, pacemakers even? Blue jeans and denim jackets that generate electricity. This has potential, because as we all know, denim never goes out of style.
I wonder what the care instructions will say...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Make me a sail out of this material and I will cruise when it is windy, sunny or both. Just throw some kevlar into the substrate. Or use carbon fibers instead of aluminum for the interconnect.
This material seems to work a lot like using an LED in reverse. (Yes, you can generate voltage/current by holding an LED near a light source or similar wavelength. Try this by measuring across a resistor tied to a red LED with a red laser pointer shining on it). I wonder if you'll be able to use this solar panel material 'in reverse' and light up the whole exterior of your house by applying appropriate voltage to the terminals =)
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
I don't know where the whole denim thing came from, this material is plastic based. If you consider that the insulator in the middle will also have to be non-porous to stop shorting out when it gets wet, it would probably be more like wearing thick PVC.... hmmm, nice. Maybe this is why they only advocate it as a covering for buildings/appliances, not people
As for the strength of the material, it would be pretty strong if the middle layer is made out of a high-tensile material. Mylar maybe? And I doubt you would have sheets of the stuff flapping around.
=#= Man, you are such a loser! Why can't you be an individual, like the rest of us?
Nonsense!
Canada's lumber is cheaper because the lumber industry spent tens of millions of dollars on new equipment and research into better harvesting techniques that don't decimate the forests. The US lumber industry is still stuck in the 1950's with labour intensive harvesting techniques and equipment.
Canada has more trees, not only because we're a much larger country, but also because we replant the forests after they've been cut. We've been doing that since the 1960's. The American Lumber Industry keeps spending their money on lobbying the governments instead of replanting the forests and modernization.
Canada's so-called dumping of forestry products in the US is simply crass politics which have nothing to do with reality. It is the US's imposing of the tarriffs that are illegal
Despite all the crap from Americans about free enterpirse and free trade, the US is the world's most tarriff protected nation. As long as the balance of trade remains positive for them, they are happy. As soon as a foreign country, such as Canada, reverses that trend, up go the tarrifs.
What ever happened to NAFTA, you ask? Obviously it's nothing but smoke for the American government since they still slap tarriffs on us. Only now with NAFTA we can prove that they are illegal.
The article isn't explicite about this, although they do say something about the round beads helping to gather the sunlight. The implication is that these are a lot less sensitive to variation of the incoming angle of the rays, which not only gives you the flexibility to put them on more surfaces, but also means the efficiency is higher in the morning or evening than conventional panels.
Now, what I want to know is how hard is it going to be to mold these into the deck of a boat? And is the coating durable enough to take walking on it? I guess the top protective layer could be epoxy for good abrasion resistance.
This is realy cool, particularly if you can make it cheaply enough. So what if you can't get above the 11-17% range of efficiency if you can easily make a much larger surface. Further, you might be able to create more complex circuits than just an array of photovoltaic cells, and really give the whole concept of wearable computers a boost. Active matrix displays would be nice.
Deploy this as a flexible solar sail. Generate electricity.
Land on the 'insert celestial body here'. Unroll powerplant. Generate electricity.
One of the big patent holders in the amorphous silicon solar cell business is Ovonic. They have the patents that allow you to spray on solar cells onto almost any surface.
Good for them. Yea. Whoop.
I'd like to stake out a claim that because they hold the patent on this solar cell technology, they are maintaining a price point to maximize their profit, rather than creating a price point that would make solar energy cheaper or even economical.
Consider:
For under $5000 you can buy a evacuation chamber, chemicals and a book on how to make solar cells in this way on small 8X11 objects. In your home. (Lost URL...otherwise I'd post it.)
Everytime economies of scale or a production advance lowers the dollars per watt on the 'old style' cells from a silicon ingot, the Ovonic price drops in lock step.
At one point in time, the cost of the intergrated Bethlingham Steel roof panels + the Ovonics roll on roofing was more than the Bethlaham Steel with the Ovonic coating sprayed right on. Now, it seems this is no longer stocked, but that could be why the price was lower - to move some stock.
Solar will drop quite a bit in price once the patents run out on the Ovonics process. Until then - Ovonics will make money on thier patent.
In what way is it terrible? It is what it is. How good are you at converting photons into electrovoltaic potential with your skin?
;)
It supplies a certain amount of power on average from a certain surface area. It'll be sufficient for some needs, insufficient for others. Beyond that, it doesn't have to stand alone anyway - it can simply reduce your use of mains power, not replace it. It's still a win, and once installed it lasts damn near forever.
If you think this is inefficient, you should really take a look at the crap in your house you can't power with it - your incandescent lights, TV set, refrigerator, hair dryer, computer. Is the problem really in supply or demand?
Another point people seldom make is that absorbing solar energy on the outside of a house saves cooling costs. At least 11% of the energy that would be absorbed as heat is instead being borne away as electricity. That's actually not a bad insulator (though dedicated solar heating & cooling schemes can do far better).
Personally I think wind power is going to achieve commercial success before solar power does, but this material is still a notable milestone. I played with silicon solar cells when I was a kid, and the one thing they were above all else was rigidly fragile.