5 ms·

If the materials are cheap enough, we might be able to build them into other stuff that was going to use labor anyway (shingles, asphalt, siding, etc). No idea

If the materials are cheap enough, we might be able to build them into other stuff that was going to use labor anyway (shingles, asphalt, siding, etc). No idea what the economics of this look like though, and electricians (a pretty expensive form of labor) will need to be involved no matter what, but at least theoretically cheaper cells can also deal with labor costs.

hackerlight 3y ago
Like solar fences: https://next2sun.com/en/solar-fence/ https://next2sun.com/en/solar-fence/
- KeplerBoy 3y ago
  Solar panels are already cheaper than wood, which is amazing.
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    Where are PV panels cheaper than wood? A 4x8 sheet of plywood runs about 40$ in north America, and roughly double that in Europe. I don't see PV panels anywhere near that price.
    - abathur 3y ago
      I can't recall ever seeing a plywood fence in North America.
      - jandrese 3y ago
        You do see them from time to time in especially rough rural areas. I can remember one that was apparently painted from the "oops" paint section of the local hardware store surrounding a strip club next to a junkyard.
        abathur 3y ago
        Sure. I don't recall seeing one, but the near-inevitability of this is why I didn't assert they don't exist. Rarity speaks to how poorly suited the material is for building durable fences and the ~irrelevance of the cost of plywood in this subthread.
    - KeplerBoy 3y ago
      You don't want a plywood fence though. PV panels are cheaper than the decorative wood fences are made of. Wood fences are easily 100€/m around here.
  - Osiris 3y ago
    It’s not cheaper than wood. It’s cheaper than certain specific kinds of wood used in specific applications. A 2x4 stud is like $3, for example. Decorative cedar is quite a bit more expensive.
    - Teever 3y ago
      I don't think that you actually thought that the person you're replying to said that solar panels are now cheaper than all wood always.
specialist 3y ago
Ya, that's my take too. Continuing R&D on alternatives like perovskite might open up new use cases. Like using transparent solar cells as windows. It's worth investigating. Bonus, it keeps scientists employed, maintaining our capacity.
sandworm101 3y ago
>> other stuff that was going to use labor anyway (shingles, asphalt, siding, etc) No. None of that ever works. Everyone has the "good idea" of cramming PV into some other product thinking that doing so will somehow reduce labor. It never does. Solar shingles are typical. They sound great but in reality require hundreds or thousands of electrical connections all spread over the moving flexible surface that is a wooden roof. You will be chasing electrical gremlins the moment the temperature shifts. And fixing any of those gremlins will involve penetrating the waterproofing, the core function of any roof. It is far easier to build and maintain a normal roof and then mount dedicated panels atop. The same too with siding. Want solar walls? Build normal walls and hang solar panels on them. It is like building a computer into a desk. It seems like a great idea that will save space and keep your office tidy. There are lots of youtube videos about such builds. In reality, it is expensive on day one and extremely inconvenient to maintain in the long run. Nobody ever does it twice.
- mlyle 3y ago
  Part of why it doesn't work, though, is that PV is too expensive. If it's cheap enough, you can tolerate failures and poor illumination of the panels for things like fence panels or whatever. I do agree you need big panels to not have excessive labor from connections.
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    >> If it's cheap enough, you can tolerate failures But you just can't. When you are using lots of tiny things all connected through each other then you have less tolerance for faults, not more. One bad connector can mean that an entire run of shingles is dark. So even a 1% fault rate, if you have a few hundred connections in each run of shingles, means that basically nothing is connected. Or think of a long fence. One broken bit can mean the entire fence after that break is no longer connected. You're just setting yourself up for a long day of checking connectivity only to have the fence shift again.
    - mlyle 3y ago
londons_explore 3y ago
I think future designs of panels might be designed in such a way an electrician isn't required. All foolproof plug'n'play connectors and designed in such a way you cannot plug them in in an unsafe way. You don't call an electrician every time you plug in a hairdryer, and a hairdryer is typically higher voltages and currents than a single panel.
- jandrese 3y ago
  Higher voltage than a single panel, but a string of panels easily hits hundreds of volts. Even worse they can be hard to make safe, since as long as the sun is shining they are generating energy and roof installers don't like working at night. You can avoid this by using microinverters, but they're a pretty substantial premium on each panel and an added point of failure. There is lot of tech around solar panels that is being effectively obsoleted by the plummeting costs of the panels themselves. Why bother trying to squeeze out the last few percentage from each panel when it's so much cheaper to just install a couple more panels to make up the difference? This is the big difference between countries like the US where solar installs are still expensive at $3-$6/watt and countries like Australia where home solar installs are under $1/watt.

hackerlight 3y ago

Like solar fences: https://next2sun.com/en/solar-fence/ https://next2sun.com/en/solar-fence/

KeplerBoy 3y ago
Solar panels are already cheaper than wood, which is amazing.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  Where are PV panels cheaper than wood? A 4x8 sheet of plywood runs about 40$ in north America, and roughly double that in Europe. I don't see PV panels anywhere near that price.
  - abathur 3y ago
    I can't recall ever seeing a plywood fence in North America.
    - jandrese 3y ago
      You do see them from time to time in especially rough rural areas. I can remember one that was apparently painted from the "oops" paint section of the local hardware store surrounding a strip club next to a junkyard.
      - abathur 3y ago
        Sure. I don't recall seeing one, but the near-inevitability of this is why I didn't assert they don't exist. Rarity speaks to how poorly suited the material is for building durable fences and the ~irrelevance of the cost of plywood in this subthread.
  - KeplerBoy 3y ago
    You don't want a plywood fence though. PV panels are cheaper than the decorative wood fences are made of. Wood fences are easily 100€/m around here.
- Osiris 3y ago
  It’s not cheaper than wood. It’s cheaper than certain specific kinds of wood used in specific applications. A 2x4 stud is like $3, for example. Decorative cedar is quite a bit more expensive.
  - Teever 3y ago
    I don't think that you actually thought that the person you're replying to said that solar panels are now cheaper than all wood always.

specialist 3y ago

Ya, that's my take too. Continuing R&D on alternatives like perovskite might open up new use cases. Like using transparent solar cells as windows. It's worth investigating. Bonus, it keeps scientists employed, maintaining our capacity.

sandworm101 3y ago

>> other stuff that was going to use labor anyway (shingles, asphalt, siding, etc) No. None of that ever works. Everyone has the "good idea" of cramming PV into some other product thinking that doing so will somehow reduce labor. It never does. Solar shingles are typical. They sound great but in reality require hundreds or thousands of electrical connections all spread over the moving flexible surface that is a wooden roof. You will be chasing electrical gremlins the moment the temperature shifts. And fixing any of those gremlins will involve penetrating the waterproofing, the core function of any roof. It is far easier to build and maintain a normal roof and then mount dedicated panels atop. The same too with siding. Want solar walls? Build normal walls and hang solar panels on them. It is like building a computer into a desk. It seems like a great idea that will save space and keep your office tidy. There are lots of youtube videos about such builds. In reality, it is expensive on day one and extremely inconvenient to maintain in the long run. Nobody ever does it twice.

mlyle 3y ago
Part of why it doesn't work, though, is that PV is too expensive. If it's cheap enough, you can tolerate failures and poor illumination of the panels for things like fence panels or whatever. I do agree you need big panels to not have excessive labor from connections.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  >> If it's cheap enough, you can tolerate failures But you just can't. When you are using lots of tiny things all connected through each other then you have less tolerance for faults, not more. One bad connector can mean that an entire run of shingles is dark. So even a 1% fault rate, if you have a few hundred connections in each run of shingles, means that basically nothing is connected. Or think of a long fence. One broken bit can mean the entire fence after that break is no longer connected. You're just setting yourself up for a long day of checking connectivity only to have the fence shift again.
  - mlyle 3y ago

londons_explore 3y ago

I think future designs of panels might be designed in such a way an electrician isn't required. All foolproof plug'n'play connectors and designed in such a way you cannot plug them in in an unsafe way. You don't call an electrician every time you plug in a hairdryer, and a hairdryer is typically higher voltages and currents than a single panel.

jandrese 3y ago
Higher voltage than a single panel, but a string of panels easily hits hundreds of volts. Even worse they can be hard to make safe, since as long as the sun is shining they are generating energy and roof installers don't like working at night. You can avoid this by using microinverters, but they're a pretty substantial premium on each panel and an added point of failure. There is lot of tech around solar panels that is being effectively obsoleted by the plummeting costs of the panels themselves. Why bother trying to squeeze out the last few percentage from each panel when it's so much cheaper to just install a couple more panels to make up the difference? This is the big difference between countries like the US where solar installs are still expensive at $3-$6/watt and countries like Australia where home solar installs are under $1/watt.