Slashdot Mirror
Pliable Solar Cells on a Roll
klevin writes "New Scientist is running a story on someone else who's developed thin, flexible, photovoltaic cells: 'The thin and bendy solar panels can be stuck to fabrics, sheets or backpacks and promise a go-anywhere electricity supply.' Whatever happened to those sheets of solar cells that some university here in the US developed several years back? As I remember, the concept was that they could be draped across roof-tops and whatnot. Never heard anything after that." We had post about solar building clothing last year.
Google it! NFJ
Would be good to use as a solar sail, I bet.
stuff
I wonder how the efficiency of these panels compares to the more conventional ones. I can't help but think that there's probably a difference; but if it isn't too bad, they could prove to be pretty useful.
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
I think this type of material could be very useful to provide electricity in places that do not have access to a reliable electrical grid.
How many watts are needed to run a a phone, a refrigerator, a radio or a computer?
So... what color is it?
The new Apple fashion: instead of black shadow people in their iPod advertisements, everyone is now covered with solar panels. (This might actually help the batter life, though, so it's not a total loss.)
"Whatever happened to those sheets of solar cells that some university here in the US developed several years back? As I remember, the concept was that they could be draped across roof-tops and whatnot. Never heard anything after that.""
I believe the aliens complained about it, making it difficult for their craft to land.
God, solar panelling on the clothes. try to imagine the warning labels they would put on thee things: WARNING! DO NOT USE WHILE BATHING OR WHILE HAVING SEX. ... Don't laugh. You heard it here first. Expect it on your self-heating winter coats next year.
If I understand solar sails correctly, this is not how they work. Instead, they utilize the combined force of billions of subatomic particles radiated by stars hitting a parachute shaped foil to tow a capsule. This is why they are made to be exceptionally lightweight and large in their surface area.
I sincerly hope you are joking... cause there is no solar panel that can compare to the power of a lithium ion battery in the common cell phone...
as for amature rockets... whats wrong with those? you can do way more damage with a car that a small carboard tube with a little black gunpowerder in it.
The poster might have been thinking about Iowa Thin Film Techologies...
To address some of Klevin's confusion, since I've been following solar panel advancements:
Thin, flexible cells have been around for a while. One reason they haven't caught on heavily is because they're nowhere near as 'powerful' (efficient at conversion) as hard panels. Did a quick search (don't take this data *too* seriously, but it represents what's normal); compare panels from these two pages:
Flexible
Solid
Specifically, compare "Unisolar 32 watt flexible solar panel" from the first link to "Shell ST40 thin film CIS 40 watt solar panel" on the second. The flexible panel is 940 sq. inches and 32 watts, while the solid panel 663 sq. inches and 40 watts. Big difference in watt per area.
I ended up choosing a big solid one to fit in the rear dash of my car; flexible would have been easier to deal with, but it won't fold, and produces less power. (I use the panel in my car to power my laptop/cell phone combo while camping and stuff, it's very cool and gets a lot of questions from random interested people!)
Here's another chart to compare the two: Product Page
Tried to find an efficiency rating chart comparing the two types, but no luck. The numbers are out there somewhere...
i live in oregon and i really cant wait to get a solor powered raincoat. oh wait
Screw clothing to charge cellphones, etc. I can't think of a more petty use.
The major impact of this tech has nothing to do with its portability/flexibility. The article estimates that the price for a final process fab will be about 1 euro per watt, compared to a highly competitive market which has so far only produced 5.6 euro per watt glass panels.
Simply put, this would make photovoltaics as an energy source an order of magnitude more competitive, if the process is scalable.
People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
Get over the terrorist thing. Stop letting them win with your paranoid thoughts.
"Go into the hall of mirrors and have a bloody hard look at yourself" - HG Nelson
The thin and bendy solar panels can be stuck to fabrics, sheets or
"Bendy"? Seems English is becoming as flexible and bendy as solar panels. Gotta do some practicizing myself.
Table-ized A.I.
Right, we should suspend ALL technological devellopments and scientific research, lest the boogyman, I mean, terrorist use it. Also, let's scrap all the tech we have and go live in caves.
You first, of course.
You can't take the sky from me...
Neon self-charging Kick-Me signs? Those are for the rich kids. Not sure if it counts as a status symbol to have one on, though. Is it better to be jammed into a gold-lined garbage can as freshman than a tin one?
Table-ized A.I.
I don't care what anyone says.
2 41&tid=126" story. Trust me, those things taste absolutely nothing like fruit-rollups.
Now matter how pliable or environmentally friendly, solar cells are not good on a roll. They taste absolutely nothing like butter, and quite frankly, I find them barely palatable.
Don't the editors try this these things themselves? This is as bad as that "http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/28/1852
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Cell phones, and battery powered devices in general are pretty easy to figure out.
If your phone has a 780mAh LIon battery (it does, roughly), then the battery contains 0.78*3.7 (3.7 is the nominal voltage) or 2.8Wh of power. then you figure out how long the battery lasts.
In the case of a phone, just turned on, doing nothing, it probably lasts at least 56 hours. 2.8Wh/56 = 0.05W. The phone is using 50mW of power on average. When you are talking, you probably get about 5.6 hours of talk time. So it's using 0.5W (500mW) on average.
All this is pretty easy to do with battery-powered devices. If you have a wall-powered device you need something to measure the power usage, like a Kill-A-Watt.
anyone who wears solar-cell clothing doesn't have to worry about either of those activities. I hear that they'll be sold exclusively under the "Members Only" lable.
You're obviously in your early stages of becoming a troll. Not bad, but not entirely convincing. Keep working on it, i see potential here.
Who cares? The ATF and the FBI and the CIA and the friggin NSA have no authority in EUROPE, you saddite. If GW Bush trespassed in my house, I would be fully within my rights to have him arrested, prosecuted, and thrown in prison. Hail the old world!
although its a nice novelty to have a solar-backpack, the real good news is that this trend will eventually bring down solar panel prices and make them avaliable to a wider audience. the biggest obstacle today to a solar panel on every roof is cost and installation, for they are already highly efficient (they can capture something like 30% of all energy to that hits a certain surface).
Could you use one of these as the roof for a shade structure (it's portable). Then you could use the power for say... a fan. Nice day at the beach.
Silence is golden... and duct tape is silver.
They quote 7% efficiency, 1 euro per watt.
Full sun is 1000 watts/sq metre, so with 7% efficiency we get 70 watts/square metre, so it has a cost of 70 euros/sq metre or, at 1.33 euros to the dollar, about $US52.60/sq metre.
Cover a 10 * 4 metre area of roof for $2,100 and get enough energy, in the middle of summer, to boil your 2 kw electic kettle all day.
At 12c per kwH for electricity, @ 2.8 kw * 6 hours/day * 365 days/year gives a cost saving of $735 pa, or a repayment of the $2,100 capital in 3 years
Are these numbers OK?
At this price will it be practical to disconnect from the grid sometime soon?
The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime - Floyd, Pink
That should be Donald's Law, I think.
stuff
How durable is it? If it got ripped, would it work anymore?
Could you grab a roll and keep it round the house, then just cut strips off and make things with it?
And 1 euro per watt... WTF? How many cubic meters of fabric in a watt exactly?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
There won't be any terrorist impications. At least not beyond today. To get a decent amount of power, you need a large surface area. Seems like that'd be a little visible to me, given that solar cells are highly reflective. If terrorists are out in direct sunlight with enough room to lay out a mat of these and not be spotted, are they in position to attack a field of wheat.
Silence is golden... and duct tape is silver.
One word (hyphenated to ease your reading speed): J-O-K-E.
Good day to you.
Without even glancing at the article (this IS /.) I'm curious how this is different than the rollable flexible solar cells that have been on the market forever.
:)
I can buy them at canadian tire, thats how common they are. Product # 11-1575-0 for example. (might neet to enter a postal code, v1p1c7 works.)
Maybe they are more efficient or something? These seem about the same as a rigid solar panel for the size. More expensive though obviously.
FINE, I just looked at the article..seems the only advantage is they are expected to be dirt cheap. I've heard that before. I'm still waiting to wallpaper my house in transparent OLED film
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Energy Conversion Devices created the thin-film amorphous photovoltaics used in their flexible solar panels, and created United Solar Ovonics to commercialize it. ECD Ovonics (the current name, I guess) is at www.ovonic.com. A quote from one of the documents on their site says, "ECD Ovonics and United Solar Ovonic hold the basic patents covering the continuous roll-to-roll manufacturing of thin-film amorphous silicon alloy multi-junction solar cells and related products. More information is available at www.uni-solar.com."
Usually people imagine solar sails as being made of a very VERY thin film,on the order of a few micrometers thick... the point being that there's very little additional mass created by the sails themselves since you need so much surface area to create any appreciable force. Also, the less mass that's used for the sails, the more mass that's available for payload (or just plain not there, which means greater acceleration).
Here's a few links (thanks Google and the obligatory Wikipedia):
A geocities-looking site with some usefull info
Planetary Society has some more info
Wikipedia entry
You may disagree, but to be blunt, you're wrong. -tgd
It didn't say it was ultra-powerful, it says it was thin and cheap in trade for efficiency (and possibly usefulness)
A truly inventive person can use anything to any purpose. Don't fear the technology, fear the people using it. If we abandoned all technology used by terrorists, we'd be living in caves and the government would be licensing the use of fire, wheels, and hammers.
-- guns don't kill people, kids playing video games kill people
As I remember, the concept was that they could be draped across roof-tops and whatnot. Never heard anything after that.e fault.asp
http://www.atsautomation.com/solar_technologies/d
SSP as mentioned on Slashdots pior story for having solar "denim" has small flexible solar panels avaliable now in Canadian Tire. Not that this helps those of you not in Canada... But you can buy them now.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Right down the road from me is Iowa Thin Film Technologies who have been making these sort of things for a number of years. Disclaimer: I wasn't able to access TFA so I could be way off base. -Jim KB0THN
The key to solar energy lies in our highways...
we need to research that as a viable source of electrical, and thermal energy.
IF we can build effecient nano- machines and embed them into the pavement we may achieve a new form of effecient enegry...
MIght require road side banks of capcitive storage cells...
Could I inquire as to what a "saddite" is?
Sleep is futile.
I always thought that a cool thing to do would be to use the excess electricity from PV cells to crack water and make Hydrogen gas rather than goofing around with expensive batteries.
Probably one of the cheapest ways to store Hydrogen "on site" is the old upside down reservoir immersed under water. In this case you would just make some electrodes under the reservoir, maybe concentric stainless steel rings? And set up the cell array for 1.5 volts, which IIRC is close to the optimum voltage for water cracking. Hook it up and collect your "Brown's Gas" during the summer, and burn it during the winter.
I just love PV Cells, they really spark my imagination. I even have a little 5V/1A PV array to play with. Too bad where I live if it isn't raining then its probably snowing.
Clickety Click
Now I'll finaly have a excuse to wear my big black cowboy hat. If anyone asks Im powering my prescott based p4 laptop 8P
Damn the man!
please don't feed the trolls. Thank you!
You must be converting the Euro into the forthcoming American Lira.
Thank you, so a cost of $93 sqm making close to $4,000 to cover 40sqm, or a repayment time of 6 years. Not so good, They won't get you to disconnect from the grid
The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime - Floyd, Pink
What amazes me is that all this investment time and "energy" is spent on cells that produce electricity.
Whereas the collection of Heat is as simple as it can get, but rarely used.
Though most mediteranian countries use solar heat for heating their domestic water, but that is about it.
What i have in mind is the use of solar heat, collected during summer, to warm domestic homes during winter. (Thats where real amounts of energy (read CO2) are needed !)
Water is an exellent storage container for heat and is dirt cheap.
The only problem is where to store all the warm water. Probably the easiest solution would be to pump up ground water, heat it, and pump it back. (The ground is actually an exellent therman insulator!)
Use the 1kW of solar energy from a couple of M2 of these cells to make water run through 100 m2 of cheap solar heat collectors.
Now we are SAVING evergy.
Why are other peoples sig's always more witty ???
Oh no! Ossama got an AA battery!
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
If you put a million monkeys with slashdot mod privledges in front of a million computers....
or else!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Jokes are always offtopic, especially if you're too stupid to get them. There was a memo or something.
1/3 of jokes get modded OT. If you get the joke, mod 1 in 3 insightful/interesting/underrated to restore karma balance.
Here's a GREAT resource when it comes to "hands on" (i.e. Real World experience) solar installations.
Home Power Magazine
I've been a reader since issue #15 or so.
If this was strong enough (UV resistant ect) to last in space it might be much cheaper than conventional solar panels as it will be so much lighter. Space is not really a problem in .... um space, what costs money is weight.
"An A4-size panel sewn onto the back of a jacket and costing less than 10 euros would charge a mobile phone during a summer stroll."
I don't wear a jacket in the summer.
Sounds totally cool tho
what?
Perhaps these panels could ring in a new age of sailing ships? Cover the sails in these panels (or, if they prove to be strong enough, make the sails out of the panels themselves).
When there's wind you hoist your sails and go. When there's no wind there's usually a nice blue sky which would provide enough light to power electric motors and screws.
I think solar power would be great for my home,
;)
It spends a lot of time out in the sun.
But my clothing?
I don't spend nearly as much time in the sun as my home does
Cheers,
-- The Dude
Didn't RTFA, but ... I wonder how the efficiency of these panels compares to the more conventional ones.
Not only are you wasting bandwidth, you're sucking up precious oxygen. Please stop one or both immediately.
-kgj
WARNING! DO NOT USE WHILE BATHING OR WHILE HAVING SEX. ... Don't laugh. You heard it here first.
True, I did hear it here first.
But I couldn't help myself -- I laughed.
-kgj
-kgj
You mean, like this ?
Interesting link, very relevant -- thanks!
-kgj
-kgj
I look foreward to a time when countries that whose only natural resourse is large amounts of scourching hot desert and they are considered energy rich.
Um, that's the situation right now -- Saudi Arabia, scorching hot desert, energy rich, no other resources. (Or did I miss your irony?).
-kgj
-kgj
So what if the houses get pre installed with solar cells? How much would that drop costs?
Good questions. Answers, anyone?
-kgj
-kgj
Yay! At long last! Mr Solar is a reality. :-D
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Right, we should suspend ALL technological devellopments and scientific research, lest the boogyman, I mean, terrorist use it. Also, let's scrap all the tech we have and go live in caves.
Sorry, no can do.
All the good caves are already taken, by guys in robes with long beards, whose names I can't pronounce.
-kgj
-kgj
www.oksolar.com/roof/ You can start there :-)
Can they be used for shingles or siding? It might not look pretty, but the savings on the electrical bill would be worth it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
for non-US readers, we have nifty governmental regs that require yellow energy consumption labels on the side of most kitchen appliances, that include likely annual operating costs, to allow the consumer to make a better informed choice...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
www.oksolar.com/roof/ You can start there :-)
Thanks!
-kgj
-kgj
This company is one of many companies that are moving ahead with this technology http://www.ovonics.com/res/2_2_thin_film/thin_film _phot.htm
It also seems that residential installs are happening in the Atlanta area too. It is something I am considering for my next roof job in about 5 years.
As for the solar powered clothing....now i have not seen anybody working on that.
With a price per watt lke this you can be sure that Sahara, Gobi, Taklamakan and other places like it will become truly hot property: vast deserts begging to be paved over with photovoltaic converters to kickstart the hydrogen economy.
Well, terrorist, no, but... ...this is a story heard from a guy who went into PV business like, in the 70s or so. The first use for solar cells were space implementations, since the price didn't matter that much. But in order to get the price lower they would've needed to mass-produce them, yet no-one was buying PV systems thanks to the high price.
Yet there was this one source of demand for easily taken care of power producers which were quiet to boot - to power the South American drug farms. Conventional generators produced enough noice national armies could spot them, solar panels were quiet. So, some claim that the one of the early adopters for this new tech, giving it a nudge forward it needed, was drug industry.
Chew on that.
Don't forget to include the installation & ancillary costs, which ae a big hunk of the expense for a "stiff" PV system and will probably be an even larger percentage for flexible (I haven't read the original article, this is /. after all -- just may be that flexible panels are cheaper to mount, but you still need the inverter etc.)
Not to decry the advantages of flexible low cost arrays, but the latest PV arrays are getting upwards of 20% (with 28% reported for some) and higher efficiency really is the holy grail for PV.
> [1] Film was a kind of light sensitive medium, usually shaped like a strip or tape used in cameras in the old days.
I'm not sure if it is sad, or funny, to have to define "film"....
How about the Mojave dessert here in the US?
I believe the Luxor hotel (the one shaped like a Pyramid) is covered in Solar Cells to power the beam of light that shoots into the sky they have on at night.
Vegas itself is a monument to excess, but Luxor is synonymous with pure luxury. Those Pharaohs sure know how to live!
I live in Minnesota, our sunlight situation is not so, um, bright. We're making some headway with agrofuel and wind, but relatively little, and there are problems.
-kgj
-kgj
TFA talks about the product entering mainstream production in a couple of years. You can purchase the Iowa Thin Film solar cells now. They're about 7% efficient, as they claim. They're not expensive, and you can get them at a number of distributors. I've personally used Jameco and Sundance Solar.
From US companies, too. The current leader in thinness is PowerFilm flexible solar panels. Flexible panels have been available for years from Ovonics; they're widely used on boats. Some sailboats have solar panels in the sails.
An engine is most efficient when running at close to wide open throttle at (relatively) low RPMs. Most people like to accelerate harder than an engine that at achieves this at highway speed will allow. Combine that with varying loads, (Most cars have just one person in them, but the engine is sized for all seats full, luggage, and a trailer) and it would be an advantage to use induction to pull energy from most cars - IF you can control the amount gathered from each car.
I don't if this makes up for all the losses involved in pulling energy from cars. Nor am I sure that a car engine pushed to maximun efficiency (~40%) from normal (~30%) is a better use of resources (it is burning more gas to do this), than a large power plant (~60% efficient). Its something to consider though.
Maybe you should try exercising the "sarcastic humor" portion of your thoughts more. ;)
Several U.S. Companies now provide solar shingles, in fact, my company has two vendors that carry them, they're just not quite popular yet because they're still a tad pricey.
Galen
In your face, and always right!
One word (hyphenated to ease your reading speed): J-O-K-E.
Two words: Not funny.
Good day to you.
Same : )
You can't take the sky from me...
If we were able to produce our own energy from the sun, the struggle to control the world's oil supplies would diminish. Terrorists would need something new to be mad about. Maybe they'll start going after spammers and trollers then...
This was covered in MIT's Technology Review at least a month ago, for those who actually pay for a dead tree subscription.
First of all, it's quite difficult to make a light-mass, zero-maintainance linear accelerator. Secondly, energy = momentum*c for photons. Your argument that the momentum is pathetically tiny also means that the energy is pathetically tiny. How do you intend to power the linear accelerator? Even if it was 100% efficient, you are still limited to the original momentum of the photons. A large sail can reflect a large number of photons; enough to produce maybe tenths of gees, which might be sufficient to travel to nearby stars in a lifetime. Don't ask me how you plan on stopping; it's certainly one-way.
Okay class, considering the current political climate of the world, raise your hand if you think this will see the light of day.
Forty-five years ago my parents had a 12V DC generator, they still have a pile of 12V bulbs and other bits. 12V DC lighting has improved a lot since then, and there are a lot of appliances (including refrigerators) that run off 12V DC. Your computer lives on 12V, some LCD screens can too. Buying a whole lot of stuff that runs on 12V DC makes perfect sense if it is a new house. Some people I know who aren't on the grid did this, and get a fair bit of solar power despite being in a deep valley and getting sun for only half the day - mini hydro takes up the slack, and changes of behaviour like only using the electric oven in daylight help. Heating in not an issue where the house is located. In midwinter if it gets really cold they close the windows and put a blanket on the bed.
For those of us in cities economy of scale still rules.
Another solar option worth exploring will be on the market soon - light piping, from Australia's CSIRO research organisation. Why use office lighting in daylight if you can channel in sunlight in cables?
Ummm...this is /. right? Didn't anyone mention that FRY's has rolled up solar pannels for about 2x to 3x the price of their flat pannels? I mean, Ya'll do know they are available, right?
Andy Out!
ooohhhh...solar-powered roto-beanie!
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you.
Here in Silicon Valley we almost never have that silly white stuff falling from the sky, and when we do it usually doesn't stick around very long, especially because it usually gets rained on, but I seem to remember from when I lived in other parts of the world that it sticks around on roofs for a while. And solar cells probably don't like having you climb around on them with a broom.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This has been around for a long time.
I saw this technology over 10 years ago, and then it disappeared off the map. I think the story was that TI had the patent, then it got lost during a shuffle of mergers and selloffs, and resurfaced a few years ago. This company http://www.speralsolar.com/ picked it up and started making them.
The unique idea behind this solar collector is that they use a doped slicon ball bearing embeded in a flexible foil backing. The collector comes of the assembly line in a continuous roll.
Dunno what the price/watt is.
From their web site:
The SuperFlex(TM) solar module is designed to keep your batteries fully charged and/or provide power for portable appliances. Whether you are a boater, RVer or an outdoor enthusiast, the SuperFlex(TM) series will provide enough energy for all your recreational needs. SuperFlex(TM) is available in 25, 50 and 75 watt models making them the most powerful flexible solar panels on the market today
A good friend will help you move. A really good friend will help you move a body.
Here is more info http://paris.fe.uni-lj.si/pvnet/europv/europv2004/ PPT/10_Jongerden.pdf about how this is manufactured.
- Perforated material laminated to vehicle rear windows to provide shade, maintain battery charge (esp. for hybrids) and power vent vans on hot days. Minuscule thickness means negligible weight penalty.
- Adhesive-backed, encapsulated cells in roll form for direct application to membrane or raised-seam metal roofing turns any smooth roofing surface into a solar roof.
- Solar hat fans.
- Solar fairings for bicycles which charge the electric assist batteries.
- Electric awning for fishing or pleasure boats, powers trolling/cruise motor.
If you can assume 120 kcal/cm^2/year, (1390 kWH/m^2/yr) a panel at 7% efficiency will yield 97.6 KWH/m^2/year. If the panel generates its rated output at 1000 W/m^2 insolation and costs 1 Euro ($1.34) per peak watt, each square meter costs $93.80 and returns about 10% on the capital investment (assuming 10 cents/kWH power, which may be much cheaper than daytime/afternoon rates when the panels would be generating). If you can get money at 6.5% this would be a good investment. If you can get money at 6.5%, pay with pre-tax dollars and use the output to displace post-tax expenses, it's a no-brainer.Sustainability and energy independence essay
You can vector your thrust because you're not just absorbing the incoming light, you are bouncing (most of) it away again. The thrust is the difference in the momentum of the incoming and outgoing light. For instance, if you angle the sail at 45 degrees to the incoming light, the light coming in on the radial vector departs on the circumferential vector, and your thrust is half outward and half circumferential.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
http://www.icpsolar.com/ssfamille.php3?id_rubrique =11
http://www.globalsolar.com/start.htm
Perfect application: toilet paper for those "eco" latrines.
Must-not-watch TV!
Solar is simply too expensive still. The price has to drop a lot before it will take off. Currently, even with tax deductions, it is still more expensive to use solar than to buy from the inefficient power companies. This makes no sense. Prices have to drop considerably. When they do, solar will take off. I'll even set something up, as I've been looking at the systems for some time.
Hair Trap Hair Salon New York