These Solar Cells Can Be Printed Onto Fabric

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tapher

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And I can buy these where? Probably the same place I can buy most of the innovative solar crap I've read about over the years; nowhere.
 

wiyosaya

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Unfortunately the downside to the printing method is the exceptional loss in efficiency, which hovers at around 1 percent.
In other words, don't expect to see these commercially available any time soon. :(
 

dragonsqrrl

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[citation][nom]tapher[/nom]And I can buy these where? Probably the same place I can buy most of the innovative solar crap I've read about over the years; nowhere.[/citation]
Ya, cause the only measure of value in innovation is whether or not it's immediately consumable.
 

Stardude82

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Best polymer solar cells are at 4%. Best semiconductor solar cells are at 42%. Mass produced silicon cells are around 20% efficient. Just a little prospective.
 

K-zon

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Think even for the amount of percentaages against other percentages though almost equals out for about any other energy source though. Even as low as thoughs are or seem. Honestly think 50% and higher is fairly argue-able. If even some lows are or aren't to say. So of the idea probably more useful then many others.
 

alidan

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[citation][nom]dragonsqrrl[/nom]Ya, cause the only measure of value in innovation is whether or not it's immediately consumable.[/citation]
... yes, that is the mark of a valuable innovation, is it available anywhere, is the research actually going places.

personally i would invest all the money for this into 3d printers. large scale industrial, and lower grade consumer.

these printers could effectively make a solar panel at a fraction of the cost now. ad in some of the innovation from these that can be printed off seaminly a desk jet, with the 3d printers abilities, and you got something cheap and more efficient than 1%
 

dragonsqrrl

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[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]... yes, that is the mark of a valuable innovation, is it available anywhere, is the research actually going places. personally i would invest all the money for this into 3d printers. large scale industrial, and lower grade consumer. these printers could effectively make a solar panel at a fraction of the cost now. ad in some of the innovation from these that can be printed off seaminly a desk jet, with the 3d printers abilities, and you got something cheap and more efficient than 1%[/citation]
Immediately consumable. A lot of people seem to have this extraordinarily short term (and short sighted) perception of, well... everything. If you want examples of this, just read through the comments sections on Tom's of any article announcing something strange, new, or different. Tablets? its stupid. 3D? it'll never amount to anything, just a fad. Not all development is made through breakthroughs, and not all progress is made through immediate profitability. Sometimes technologies can take years, decades of iterative development to reach the level of sophistication we currently see, and take for granted, in modern devices and products. Photovoltaics are a perfect example of this.
 

kryojenix

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[citation][nom]Stardude82[/nom]Best polymer solar cells are at 4%. Best semiconductor solar cells are at 42%. Mass produced silicon cells are around 20% efficient. Just a little prospective.[/citation]
Hey! Thanks for the summary. The point is, however: polymer solar cells should become very cheap to manufacture eventually, so many more people would be able to deploy them and to greater extents.
 

doive1231

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There's so much energy from the sun that even modest improvements in efficiency will be good. Ideally, I would like to walk around and wear clothes that charge my MP3, phone, batteries etc so that most of my energy needs are met for a low initial cost.
 

freggo

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and here we are again with the spam.
The IT Geeks beaten by some half twit spammer.
If I had a say at THG, heads would be rolling in the IT department by now !

I must say, I am beginning to root for the Spammers.
They are 6:0 against the THG web geeks for just this morning :)
In soccer that's a massacre !

 


Well I am in Perth ... so I face the SE Asia onslaught of spam in my time zone ... I am a volunteer ... like most of the "IT Geeks" ... I have a full-time job (paying much better than IT) ... Tom doesn't pay my wage ... I work for them for free.

Today I had to service my spa ... sorry.

Moderating ... Its called a hobby ... or an obsession for some of us.

Our new site is being put together ... go to the THG main site and explore the Beta ... we have been assured the forum software will be uber.

Till then I am keeping things together here with the assistance of my Tesla coil, psychic amythest crystal, prayer rug ... and some M and M's I stole from NASA ...

Bear with me ...

Mission uncontrol out ...

 

stingstang

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[citation][nom]dragonsqrrl[/nom]Immediately consumable. A lot of people seem to have this extraordinarily short term (and short sighted) perception of, well... everything. If you want examples of this, just read through the comments sections on Tom's of any article announcing something strange, new, or different. Tablets? its stupid. 3D? it'll never amount to anything, just a fad. Not all development is made through breakthroughs, and not all progress is made through immediate profitability. Sometimes technologies can take years, decades of iterative development to reach the level of sophistication we currently see, and take for granted, in modern devices and products. Photovoltaics are a perfect example of this.[/citation]
Well....I still think tablets are stupid, and I don't watch any new movies in 3D if I can help it.
On the subject of these printable solar panel...things, like everything else that's really cool, it's "not going to be seen any time soon".
 

wiyosaya

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[citation][nom]doive1231[/nom]There's so much energy from the sun that even modest improvements in efficiency will be good. Ideally, I would like to walk around and wear clothes that charge my MP3, phone, batteries etc so that most of my energy needs are met for a low initial cost.[/citation]
To give a bit of perspective, there is about 1kW / m^2 of solar radiation that strikes the Earth's surface on a cloudless day (a simple web search will bear this fact out), i.e., one-kilowatt per square meter. At 1% efficiency, this would mean that you would get 10 Watts from a one square meter array of these.

I once estimated that I would need about 7 kW to take my house off-grid using PVs alone. With these, I would need 700 square meters of them to supply that level of power. For those using English measure, figure that a square meter is roughly 10 square feet. So, that means that I would need 7,000 square feet of these to supply my home. I don't know about anyone else, but that is about 3.5 times the square footage of my home.

I am not against innovation in the least bit, but before these become commercially viable, they will need to bring the efficiency up to some figure that is a substantial improvement over what it currently is. If they could reach 10 percent, then I would only need 700 square feet of these. While I still consider this "large" it is substantially better than having to cover my entire property with the cells as they stand.

Now for devices that have a significantly reduced power need over something like my home, say in the 10 W or less range, these might be commercially viable if they are inexpensive enough to manufacture. What I have heard as a reasonable figure is $1.00 / W.

I want to see research like this continue, however, I more so want to see something like this come to market. There are so many developments like this that I am aware of, like a thermo-electric device that may be able to reach 99% efficiency, that I hear of and then almost never hear of again. To me, that's frustrating.
 
G

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Scientists at Oregon State U have come up with a similar process, but they are ahead of the gang at MIT

In the new findings, researchers were able to create an ink that could print chalcopyrite onto substrates with an inkjet approach, with a power conversion efficiency of about 5 percent. The Oregon State U researchers say that with continued research they should be able to achieve an efficiency of about 12 percent, which would make a commercially viable solar cell.

however it works, I hope that cost-effective solar power can become a big part of our energy future.
 
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