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Author Topic: Cheaper more sustainable solar panels  (Read 2575 times)

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Offline Cataclysm

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Cheaper more sustainable solar panels
« on: March 11, 2013, 10:17:31 pm »
http://www.newswise.com/articles/new-solar-panels-made-with-more-common-metals-could-be-cheaper-and-more-sustainable

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The new photovoltaic technology uses abundant, less-expensive materials like copper and zinc ― “earth-abundant materials” ― instead of indium, gallium and other so-called “rare earth” elements. These substances not only are scarce, but are supplied largely by foreign countries, with China mining more than 90 percent of the rare earths needed for batteries in hybrid cars, magnets, electronics and other high-tech products. Atwater and James C. Stevens, Ph.D., described successful efforts to replace rare earth and other costly metals in photovoltaic devices with materials that are less-expensive and more sustainable.

Seems neat

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Offline ThunderWulf

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Re: Cheaper more sustainable solar panels
« Reply #1 on: March 12, 2013, 12:00:30 am »
That's really damn cool actually!

The biggest thing I like about it is that they don't even LOOK like solar panels.
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Art Vandelay

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Re: Cheaper more sustainable solar panels
« Reply #2 on: March 12, 2013, 12:13:46 am »
It would be a royal bitch to maintain, though. All the cleaning you'd have to do, not to mention the mass of wiring in roof. Just imagine you find your power output significantly dropped, and you have to check every individual shingle to find the ones that have shat themselves?
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Offline Cerim Treascair

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Re: Cheaper more sustainable solar panels
« Reply #3 on: March 12, 2013, 05:05:41 am »
I'll admit, those look pretty spiffy!
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Offline chiheisen

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Cheaper more sustainable solar panels
« Reply #4 on: March 12, 2013, 05:55:00 am »
I love the color.  I don't know much about maintaining solar panels, so I can't imagine the work it would take, but aesthetically these are nice. 
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Offline Sylvana

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Re: Cheaper more sustainable solar panels
« Reply #5 on: March 12, 2013, 09:58:14 am »
Quote from: Art Vandelay on March 12, 2013, 12:13:46 am
It would be a royal bitch to maintain, though. All the cleaning you'd have to do, not to mention the mass of wiring in roof. Just imagine you find your power output significantly dropped, and you have to check every individual shingle to find the ones that have shat themselves?

If you set it up right, you can have an LED on a main board showing which shingle is not having any current flow through it which would dramatically reduce troubleshooting problems.
Of course you could also just wire them all haphazardly and struggle for the rest of ones life maintaining them.

I think its a good design though. It looks good enough to encourage people to invest in them.
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Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Cheaper more sustainable solar panels
« Reply #6 on: March 13, 2013, 07:12:01 pm »
Unfortunately, I can't take this seriously.

This is why:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVYUPmjJ9bU" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVYUPmjJ9bU</a>
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Offline Material Defender

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Re: Cheaper more sustainable solar panels
« Reply #7 on: March 14, 2013, 09:03:53 am »
Definitely a nice setup, me thinks.
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Offline Star Cluster

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Re: Cheaper more sustainable solar panels
« Reply #8 on: March 14, 2013, 09:21:37 am »
As for maintenance and/or troubleshooting, I would hope the developers would have taken this into consideration and have a plan plan for it.  That would be a huge selling point.

Of course, the most important thing about this would be the price to install.  It does say in the article that it this would be more affordable than currently available products, but that doesn't tell us much.  If the cost to install is not proportional to the money saved from buying electricity, then what's the point.  It would be like buying a hybrid vehicle just to save money on gasoline.  Sure, it gets better fuel mileage, but if you ever have to replace the battery, it more than wipes out any savings in fuel you've realized.
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Offline Igor

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Re: Cheaper more sustainable solar panels
« Reply #9 on: March 16, 2013, 08:49:13 pm »
Keeping those clean in the winter would be a nightmare.
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Offline Askold

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Re: Cheaper more sustainable solar panels
« Reply #10 on: March 25, 2013, 02:05:45 am »
Would not work in Finland, what with all the snow, but then again in warmer regions this certainly has potential.

I don't think that those rooftiles are the best use for these solar panels but it is an innovative design. After all if there are people who would not want an "ugly" solar panel on his rooftop but would take these then they have a market. And no doubt they can make regular panels with the same technology.

Also, having the panels be so small means that replacing one or two broken ones is a small task that one person can do.
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Offline mellenORL

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Re: Cheaper more sustainable solar panels
« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2013, 10:43:38 am »
The tiles are tougher and simpler than they look. They have snap-to wiring harnesses and it's not like the whole array fails if one connection or tile fails. The criss-cross grid you see below the tiles in the installation picture is the circuit grid. The tiles are not wired in series like a string of holiday lights. Flat "asphalt" shingle-style PV roofing systems have been available for a while now, are just as discrete as these barrel tiles.

Here's an article with several promising developments in PV tech. Combine them with this cheaper common metals tech, and it gets really promising.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120119153042.htm
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