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Printed Solar Panels for Less Than $10 a Square Metre
- HillaryBriss 9y agoFor a very rough comparison, according to this, conventional solar panels cost about $10-$12 per square foot, or very roughly $100 per square meter. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-cost-per-Sq-ft-for-solar-panels https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-cost-per-Sq-ft-for-solar-p... Of course, what we really want is a comparison in terms of cost per watt. Maybe equally important to the cost of these panels is the ease and cost of installing them. These new printed panels are very flexible/lightweight and can be deployed easily and even temporarily.
- jessriedel 9y agoYea, can't make a meaningful comparison without (a) cost per watt or (b) cost per total present-value of lifetime power delivered
- jaclaz 9y agoYep, but the article states "production costs": >The technology delivers unprecedented affordability at a production cost of less than $10 a square metre. the cost you are citing are "sale prices", they are not the same thing. Given that the Quora post cited is accurate (and "current" as the price of conventional panels is dropping constantly, and a two years old post sounds like outdated) the ratio is much smaller than 1/10, more probably around 4/10 or 5/10. Still a "big thing", however, provided that it works, that the cost estimation is accurate, that the efficiency is comparable, etc.
- QAPereo 9y agoDoes anyone have any information on how efficient these are how long they last and that kind of thing? All I got for the article was a lot of hype and $10 a meter.
- sand500 9y agoWoild like to know normal panel's efficiancy and costs for comparison
- ekr 9y agoYou can buy solar cells off aliexpress at ~$0.33 / watt (this is the lowest price atm). The most efficient cells are at 23-25% efficiency, but these are a bit more expensive (closer to $0.5). Here's the first example I could find (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/10-Pcs-17-6-125-x-125MM-Mono-Solar-Cells-5x5-Grade-A-monocrystalline-Silicon-PV/32679479078.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/10-Pcs-17-6-125-x-125MM-Mono...).
- jaclaz 9y agoIn the real world you cannot expect to need less than around 5 square meters for 1kW of peak power (using the most efficient panels), the standard "rule of the thumb" being 7 sq meters per 1 kW, some lower efficiency panels (not used anymore) will stretch that up to nearly 9 square meters per 1kW. This puts the efficiency in a range between 1/9 and 1/5, i.e. between 11 and 20%. So if this new panel has a 1/10-1/8 of the best above, it plainly means that you will need in your typical single home installation more space than your roof has. Let's take a 6 kW installation, with best current panels it will be 30 square meters or however at the most 45, with these printed thingies more like 240-300 sqm or more. And 2-3 years of expected life! Maybe the principle is fine but it must be modified/bettered to raise the efficiency and to increase the durability.
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- olegkikin 9y ago> "In terms of efficiency, the solar cells are currently showing around a 2-2.5 per cent power conversion rate" [1] Since you can probably get 250-350 watts of sunlight (avg) per square meter, it means 1 sq m generates 5 to 8.75 watts. Which is 0.5 to 0.875 watts per dollar (or $1.14-$2 per watt). I don't think that's cheaper than the current offerings, especially if you don't consider these printed panels take 10X more space. Also the lifespan isn't known. But consider that the price of these new panels will likely fall, if mass-produced. [1]: https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/17/researchers-australias-university-newcastle-testing-printed-solar-panels/ https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/17/researchers-australias-... EDIT: Other people say it's $0.40 per watt. [2] [2]: http://www.thefifthestate.com.au/energy-lead/energy/cheap-and-quick-printed-solar-on-the-way-from-newcastle/91624 http://www.thefifthestate.com.au/energy-lead/energy/cheap-an...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- nilsocket 9y ago> On our lab-scale printer we can easily produce hundreds of metres of material per day, on a commercial-scale printer this would increase to kilometres. If you had just ten of these printers operating around the clock we could print enough material to deliver power to 1000 homes per day,” said Professor Dastoor. That being said, may-be 10Km worth of these can power 1000 homes. It costs $10 per sq.meter.
- kurthr 9y agoThe costs of the inverters, installation, and connection already dominate the cost of solar. Before incentives in California, you are looking at $5k/kw and the solar cells are less than 20% of that.
- throwaway5752 9y agoIs that true? I was looking at $4/kw (all in) 5 years ago. Not in CA, but that should come close to a 25% difference. It was mid-tier panels, but a high quality inverter.
- kurthr 9y agoYes, but did that include federal and state subsidies? With Fed tax incentives (as most people quote) on a 5kw installation in CA it's $15-20k depending on who and where. So that would be in the $3-4 range... a lot of that is labor (almost half) so other parts of the country are lower. Rural places tend to be higher though. My real point was that labor price variations can easily be larger than the total actual panel cost.
- ac29 9y agoCurious, what is the need for a 5kW array? Do they typically only produce at 5-10% of peak? Or do the relatively low panel prices mean that if you are going to build 1kW, you might as well build 5? I just went outside and checked my utility company smart meter... the whole house isnt even using 100W right now (though thats on the low side, I'd think).
- 1024core 9y ago> If you had just ten of these printers operating around the clock we could print enough material to deliver power to 1000 homes per day,” said Professor Dastoor. The US has 100M homes. That would require 100,000 days, or 300 years...
- crishoj 9y agoOne could consider having more than just ten printers.
- caio1982 9y agoYou missed the "just ten".
- anovikov 9y agoThat also means if these things decay at the same rate as normal solar panels (producing an equivalent of 30 years of like-new power through about 35 years of lifetime), only 100 presses will be enough to power the entire U.S., or about 300-400 presses if you include all power needs, not just home. Which doesn't sound like a lot, one press per million people.
- djrogers 9y agoBut where are you going to put these things? They are quite inefficient compared to conventional solar, so it’s not like you can just cover roofs in them and be done.
- anovikov 9y agoYes i already realized that... Essentially that is half-scam, with that low efficiency they are pretty much useless.
- nashashmi 9y agoHow about a calculation with the number of new homes per day? In other words how many printers do we need to satisfy the solar energy demand of all future homes?
- danmaz74 9y agoLooks like the conversion efficiency is between 2% and 3%, so, pretty low compared to silicon based PV reference https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/17/researchers-australias-university-newcastle-testing-printed-solar-panels/ https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/17/researchers-australias-... http://reneweconomy.com.au/uni-newcastle-team-tests-printed-solar-panels-in-australian-first-50301/ http://reneweconomy.com.au/uni-newcastle-team-tests-printed-... edited to clarify 2/3%
- caltelt 9y agoThis is what I was looking for. The 'Performance' section of the article was pretty lacking on any actual details. They mention that it's more consistent over 24 hour periods, but that could've just meant that output was low, regardless of the time of day.
- STRML 9y agoTo be clear to those reading, that's 2% to 3%, not two-thirds percent.
- danmaz74 9y agoThx, fixed
- TheStrongest 9y agoLast I heard silicon based was getting close to 25% efficiency. So for the same amount of energy of a square meter of a traditional panel, you'd need 10 square meters. That's a huge solar panel for only a regular amount of energy. I assume they'll continue to get more efficient though, maybe in a few years it'll be worth it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- philipkglass 9y agoThat would put them at 20-30 watts-peak per square meter, or $0.50 to $0.33 per Wp if the cost is $10/m^2. At the lower efficiency, crystalline silicon modules are already cheaper. At the higher efficiency, it may be cheaper than crystalline silicon modules but just slightly. It would need to reach commercial-scale production very soon to avoid being overtaken by the relentless manufacturing optimization of standard c-Si technology. Another problem is that "less than $10 a square meter" is almost certainly an estimate referring to scaled-up commercial production. Printing 100 m^2 of devices for that test site did not cost under $1000. Finally, I'd wonder about lifetime and endurance. Crystalline silicon itself is extremely durable. With good supporting materials and thermomechanical design, c-Si modules can go 30 years before they degrade below 75% of original rated output. (There are at least a few solar modules installed in the early 1980s that are still working fine.)
- msoad 9y agoHow those films hold under direct sun?
- ChuckMcM 9y agoAn interesting addition to the mix. The design space around solar power systems focuses on either cost (like in this example where efficiency is low) or efficiency gains regardless of cost[1]. Presumably if we get to a point where you can cheaply print 25+% efficient cells then we're "done" as it were on improving solar cells :-) [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/japanese-company-develops-a-solar-cell-with-record-breaking-26-efficiency/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/japanese-company-dev...
- peter303 9y agoA lot of cost in installations is now other factors such as casing, peripheral electronicls like invertors, labor, financing, etc.
- simcop2387 9y agoI wonder if these could be used to produce panels on a remote planet/planetoid. I.e. could you use this to create a bunch of panels to place on the moon, even with the low efficiency you'd still save a lot by not having to ship them.
- vasili111 9y agoWhat is the price per watt?
- Someone 9y ago2% efficiency would give you ballpark 5W per square meter (peak) or about .25W for a sheet of paper (less indoors or at night) So, if this can be combined with a paper-thin e-ink display (and, if needed, a flat sheet capacitor for power storage), would that be enough to make true paper-thin displays at reasonable price?
- unwttng 9y agoYeah but do they mine bitcoin
- wrycoder 9y agoShingles are about $8 per sq meter, uninstalled. Plywood is somewhat more. How durable is this stuff?
- konschubert 9y agoWhat's the cost per Watt?
- kirrent 9y agoHey, I know the phd student who printed out these cells and set up the demonstration! It's part of the university's push for large scale organic solar demonstrations along with the smaller test cells. From talking with him, the technology isn't really ready for prime time yet but it's getting pretty close. I think the key point is that efficiencies in small scale cells and larger scale manufacturing are still climbing (the same group has achieved greater than 5% in a cm^2 test cell iirc) and the printing is incredibly cheap and very amenable to fast scaling up. It seems pretty obvious that you needed more efficiency for it to be a viable rooftop solution but the guy who set this up claimed that the fact he could just stick down some velcro and stick on the cells opened up some different use cases with cheap and lean installations supporting cheap cells. All in all, if you look at how far the technology has come in the last 5 years alone, then it's a pretty exciting field to follow.
- Brakenshire 9y ago> It seems pretty obvious that you needed more efficiency for it to be a viable rooftop solution but the guy who set this up claimed that the fact he could just stick down some velcro and stick on the cells opened up some different use cases with cheap and lean installations supporting cheap cells. I imagine one end-case could be using this as a cladding material, you could cover buildings, and the low efficiency would be balanced by the low cost. The major problem is that these materials are unstable and degrade quickly, if you can get the lifetime up from 5-10 years now, to 20-30 years, then it really starts to look attractive.
- misterhtmlcss 9y agoI don't think commercial structures typically keep their cladding beyond 10 years, unless it's a warehouse, so I'd imagine if it's anything other than. A warehouse they'd be happy to just have it reliably last 10 years then whatever from that point forward. Also depending on who's involved and the business vertical, plus tax and policy structure, there could be a cottage industry around skinning warehouses I'd imagine, even if it needed to be re-skinned ever 10 years, but I agree that anything less than 10 years isn't sturdy enough for many applications beyond super niche.
- Ghost66 9y agoEfficiency is the bottleneck of that's project, perhaps if it became an open source project creative people can create fantastic uses for it.
- amelius 9y ago> “By reinventing the delivery model we remove the need for initial lump sum outlays, overcoming the key barrier to community uptake and ensuring that the science actually ends up on our rooftops,” said Professor Dastoor. But can't banks just solve this, by financing panels upfront? There's quite some money to be made there, I'd guess. And the risk is limited.
- audunw 9y agoIf the efficiency could just increase (to ~8% maybe) and inverters got a bit cheaper still, I think you'll start to really open the "just for fun" part of the market. I wouldn't hesitate to put them on my shed.
- lightedman 9y agoPlenty of cheap inverters - design your system to run at higher voltages. Run your panels in series to get to ~120V first, then get a simple switch inverter since you're already matching (in North America where I am) your mains voltage, those inverters are cheaper and usually more efficient. Then you feed that into your MPPT, which should have the step-down for 12V battery charging and cleaning the input 120VAC power..
- Dryken 9y agoA French company has been doing solar panel printing for while now. What's so new with this one ?
- brreakdown 9y agoCould I wear it and generate power while I walk around? Could I sell the power I generate when I reached my destination?
- plaidfuji 9y agoI'm a researcher in this field. Printable, flexible solar cells have been researched for over a decade and improvements on their efficiency plateaued at about 10% almost five years ago. That's at lab scale being tested in a nitrogen glove box, using the most exotic designer molecules and printing techniques that don't scale. Many companies have tried and failed to commercialize this technology in the recent past, Konarka being one example. I believe Heliatek in Germany is the latest iteration, no doubt propped up by their massive solar subsidies. The main problem is that the raw organic semiconducting materials are currently not produced at scale, and no chemical company will risk ramping production when the end product is only a 5% efficient cell that will be outcompeted by c-Si in almost every application except niche cases like the chicken coops described by others here. That being said, my best guess is that printable, flexible electronics will be seen in flexible displays/wearables within 5 years, RFID tags on product packaging in the same time frame, biomedical and soft robotics applications within 10, and flexible large-area lighting (think wallpaper with programmable lighting zones) within 10 as well. But in the energy game, efficiency and raw material costs determine winners, and printed OPV is losing on both.
- Ghost66 9y agoEfficiency is the bottleneck of that's project, perhaps if it became an open source project creative people can create fantastic uses for it.