2 ms·

I've always thought cost and area were the most significant barriers to solar panel adoption - not weight.

• jillesvangurp 4y ago
  Area can be cheap depending on where you go. Cost breaks down into a few components: manufacturing, transport, and installation. All three are impacted by weight. They weigh less, so there are less raw materials involved. So you would expect that to impact production cost. Also, with flexible materials like this, they likely get produced on rolls. So machines might be a bit different and maybe run a little faster/efficient and use less energy and other resources. As for transporting, moving something around that weighs a lot less is obviously going to be cheaper. And this sounds like it is also a lot less fragile so you can go easier on the packaging too. Finally, for installation, not having to move around panels that weigh tens of kilos is going to be easier and quicker and also require less in terms of mounting infrastructure, roof preparation, etc. I could see this shave off some hours. And of course the usable area improves too if you reduce weight. You could probably install this on walls even. And there are plenty of nice empty walls in most places. So, yes, weight is a big deal.
  • osigurdson 4y ago
    >> So, yes, weight is a big deal. Not if it costs more. It doesn't by definition cost less because it weighs less.