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20% more powerful perovskite solar panels enter commercial use
- SoftTalker 2y agoIn case you want more than a press release: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite_solar_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite_solar_cell N.b the long section on lead toxicity concerns.
- Etheryte 2y agoYeah, lead is never good news because there is no level of exposure that isn't considered unhealthy. To quote the above wiki page: > hybrid perovskites are very unstable and easily degrade to rather soluble compounds [...], which significantly increases their potential bioavailability and hazard for human health Even if we're super careful about how we install and interact with substances like these ourselves, once we put it in our living environment it's going to come back to us the long way around through the food chain. From the main wiki article on lead [0]: > Lead has no confirmed biological role, and there is no confirmed safe level of lead exposure. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead#Biological_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead#Biological_effects
- Scaevolus 2y agoI'd rather use 20% more land than revisit the "woops, lead everywhere thanks to energy" of the 20th century.
- naasking 2y agoThe lead is contained within a solid panel, it's not like we're burning in our gasoline that pumps it into the air. As long as the panels are recycled I don't see the issue.
- MisterTea 2y agoThese panels will be used in utility scale projects which might be in areas prone to freak hail storms. Such a storm could pulverize the panels and the melting hail or rain could wash the leaded debris onto the ground below it. That can eventually make its way into the water table. Damaged panels in the rain/snow can have the same effect. Another scenario are hybrid farms where runoff from leaking or damaged panels could make its way directly into the food chain. Fires will melt and destroy panels and enable the lead to enter the ground and air. You also assumes every panel will be properly recycled and seeing how much illegal dumping exists to save a dollar I have little hope of a completely closed system. So yeah, I see issues.
- digging 2y ago> I'd rather use 20% more land This could actually be a pretty massive issue in theory on its own, though. We really need to be covering/converting parking spaces and reusing existing land waste.
- kwhitefoot 2y agoI've been told that in France large car parks have to have covered areas with solar panels on top.
- coldpie 2y ago> revisit the "woops, lead everywhere thanks to energy" of the 20th century That seeeeems unlikely to me. We know the dangers of lead now, and it is treated much more carefully. It's absolutely good to be aware of, but I don't think we're going to make the same mistake. Also worth considering that coal & garbage-fueled plants output lead directly into the atmosphere[1], so if these help take coal plants offline, it's still a gain even if they aren't perfect. [1] https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/abs/10.1289/isee.2021.P-143 https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/abs/10.1289/isee.2021.P-143
- SoftTalker 2y agoWe knew the dangers of lead when we put it into gasoline. We let industry leaders gaslight us into thinking it wasn't something to worry about.
- robocat 2y agoNo need to blame faceless corporations. The inventor was famously complacent about it. Facing a crowd of journalists, inventor Thomas Midgley Jr. poured a lead additive over his hands and then proceeded to inhale its fumes for about a minute. Unfazed, he said, “I could do this every day without getting any health problems whatsoever.” Soon afterward, Midgley needed medical treatment.
- zardo 2y ago> We know the dangers of lead now, and it is treated much more carefully. Like we don't cover our roofs with solar panels made from lead crystals.
- marcosdumay 2y agoNot all perovskite cells use lead, and there's nothing about the composition of those panels on the article.
- MisterTea 2y ago> Not all perovskite cells use lead, and there's nothing about the composition of those panels on the article. That does not mean we should dismiss the issue.
- dghughes 2y ago>lead is never good news because there is no level of exposure that isn't considered unhealthy. Brass has lead in it. That's a lot of doorknobs, faucets, and zippers touched every day.
- coryrc 2y ago"Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass Plumbing brass has traditionally contained high levels of lead, but it's not supposed to anymore, except for things intended for non-drinking-water purposes, which unfortunately includes outdoor water spigots. I wouldn't be shocked in doorknobs had lead in them beyond trace amounts, but it isn't guaranteed.
- MisterTea 2y agoNot sure what you mean. That it's okay to be exposed to lead because it exists in existing objects?
- michael9423 2y agoIn my previous comment elsewhere that got flagged, I said, among other things, that the only clean sources of energy are nuclear and water. Solar panels are generally pretty toxic to the environment. Even the silicon panels contain lead. There's a pretty dark side to renewables that not many want to see. https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-leaving-behind-toxic-trash/ https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die...
- blitzar 2y ago> the only clean sources of energy are nuclear and water > Solar panels are generally pretty toxic to the environment Nuclear waste is famously clean and Three Gorges Dam has caused the Earth to alter its rotation. Lunch is not free and never will be free. Part of the problem is pretending that it is or that my one true solution will solve all the problems of the world.
- michael9423 2y agoYes, technically there is nothing that is 100% clean. But with nuclear and water, you more or less control the area of contamination and you don't have a permanent production of toxic waste that goes everywhere and is impossible to get out of the environment again. I have heard 4th generation nuclear is pretty clean.
- blitzar 2y ago> I have heard 4th generation nuclear is pretty clean. You heard wrong. 4th generation nuclear doesn't actually exist anywhere but on paper. I hear nuclear fusionand perpetual motion machines are pretty clean.
- michael9423 2y agoThis is considered 4th gen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTR-PM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTR-PM
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- GaggiX 2y agoI wonder what's the degradation of these panels.
- twojacobtwo 2y agoRelevant details: >The 72-cell panels, comprised of Oxford PV’s proprietary perovskite-on-silicon solar cells, can produce up to 20% more energy than a standard silicon panel. They will be used in a utility-scale installation >Oxford PV has been developing and working to commercialise this technology since 2014, with a recent module efficiency record of 26.9%.
- coldpie 2y agoThis is very exciting! My understanding[1] is that silicon panels have largely hit their max efficiency, and further improvements will come from using new materials. Perovskite panels are the next up coming down the research pipeline, so it's very cool to hear those are moving out of the research phase and actually hitting production. I expect perovskite-based panels will have years of efficiency gains, just like silicon did, as we continue to explore even more efficient new materials. Great stuff! [1] Mostly from listening to the Skeptic's Guide podcast, which frequently covers green energy research.
- nicoburns 2y agoTo me it seems hard to justify use of perovskite panels (outside of niche use cases where high-efficiency is important like space exploration) when they use so many toxic materials (and silicon panels have no such problems and are dirt cheap). Just building more silicon panels seems like a better plan.
- coldpie 2y agoYeah, that's 100% a problem worth calling out and fixing. But we really do need efficiency gains in solar panels, and silicon is maxed out. Figuring out how to make perovskite more workable is absolutely worth the effort, and commercializing it is a crucial step for that.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoI know these have theoretically higher efficiencies at the cost of longevity, but I am curious if there is anything else that makes them desirable. Are they cheaper to make? Having lead really sours my take on them. Everything from production to deployment to recycling gets worse.
- _benedict 2y agoThese apparently use tin instead of lead. https://www.internationaltin.org/oxford-pv-moving-toward-next-gen-tin-using-solar-cells/ https://www.internationaltin.org/oxford-pv-moving-toward-nex...
- MisterTea 2y agoIt is described as being "tin-using" which means there could still be lead. Towards the end of the article it even states that a competing panel uses tin-lead which can be described as "tin-using".
- _benedict 2y ago[1] is a press release from the original result that has been developed, and specifically refers to replacing lead with tin, with the purported reason to produce a lead-free cell for easier commercialisation (due to the concerns over lead). I chose to share the other link originally because it was newer. [1] https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-05-01-lead-out-tin-cheap-solar-cell-1 https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-05-01-lead-out-tin-cheap-sola...
- pstrateman 2y agoWho cares? The panels themselves are basically free. The mounting system and the inverter are the expensive part.
- _zoltan_ 2y agoAnd labour.. I just got an offer to cover two houses next to each other and the scaffolding is 15k CHF.
- blitzar 2y agoEven if the panels were 2x the efficiency, it wouldn't make renting the scaffolding, or getting workers on site any cheaper.
- _zoltan_ 2y agowe have a """problem""" of physical labor being too expensive. I put it in question marks as I have no solution (I don't want to rob people of their primary income source), but it's really getting out of hand. I had two spigots installed on an already there pipe, on two ends. 1100 chf. material cost was 400, the rest is labor at 125/h. So I just tend to learn a lot of this stuff from YouTube, but obviously I do a lot worse job than someone doing this for years as a living.
- jjeaff 2y agoMounting system doesn't have to be very expensive. But the mounting labor is. Which is why the mounting hardware does end up costing a lot, because anything to save labor time is usually a good tradeoff.
- neltnerb 2y agoYou need fewer mounting systems if the production per panel is higher. It's one of the major things you can do to reduce costs, panel efficiency gains mean you need to mount fewer panels. If 20% more power is produced per panel, you need 5/6 as many panels your project is straight up 16% cheaper. If anything, your statement about the panels being free and the balance of system and installation cost being expensive make efficiency improvements even more impactful. The main historical issue with perovskite cells is damage and lifetime, which again directly relate to how many times you need to do these big capital investments. If they last twice as long you need to deal with half as much installation and mounting work over the lifetime.
- neltnerb 2y agoHeh, I read this as "20% more ... enter commercial use" which was much more surprising.
- CapitalistCartr 2y agoFixed installations don't need more efficiency. We have plenty of room as is. The price per watt is more relevant and even that has become trivial, as installation costs trump panel cost. We mostly need more panels installed everywhere.
- bilsbie 2y agoEfficiency could lower labor costs potentially. Physically less panels to set up.
- thehappypm 2y agoBingo. Same exact cost of labor, 20% more power.
- RexM 2y agoIf the panels are 20% more efficient, wouldn't you need to install 20% less of them?
- skykooler 2y agoYes, but that only becomes a win if the new panels cost less than 20% more than existing ones.
- Ajedi32 2y agoIf they cost less than 20% more _total_, including installation costs, which is interesting because it means the higher the installation costs in a particular area the more likely it is to be worth the added cost of the more efficient panels (which presumably aren't more difficult to install than traditional panels).
- tomtom1337 2y agoAs an aside to the topic, that's not quite how the maths would work. If the panels were 100% more efficient, you wouldn't need 100% less of them If the panels were 20% more efficient, you'd want 1 -1/1.20 = 16.7% less of them.
- qwertox 2y agoFound on the internet: The average efficiency of domestic solar panels is between 18% and 24%. So let's assume 20%. 20% more powerful then means a 24% efficiency. According to Wikipedia: As of 2024, the world record for solar cell efficiency is 47.6%, set in May 2022 by Fraunhofer ISE, with a III-V four-junction concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) cell.
- mrtesthah 2y agoThe linked press release already cites an overall efficiency of 24%. Did you purposely scour the internet just to avoid reading it?
- qwertox 2y agoYes. Old cells are 20%, new cells are 24%. To me, this means that the new cells are 4% more efficient. To their marketing team it means that they are 20% more powerful. Edit: Got it, the marketing team is accurate.
- aktenlage 2y agoYour 4% are not percent, but percentage points. The marketing team is right about this one.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- aidenn0 2y agoThey are certainly both 20% more efficient and 20% more powerful. Let's say that a certain size panel gets 100W of insolation. If you move from 20W to 24W then you are generating 20% more power from the same amount of insolation, so you are 20% more efficient. People seem to treat percentages differently from other numbers, when all it means is "divide by 100." Nobody complains when you say going from 9% to 18% is "doubling in efficiency" but if you say it is "100% more efficient" or "200% as efficient" then people complain.
- creato 2y ago
- GlibMonkeyDeath 2y agoAnother breathless press release on perovskite technology from Oxford PV. The press release's claim of "reducing the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE)" (compared to what?) is sufficiently vague that my BS detector started twitching. Let's look at the state-of the art: The most carefully done research article I could find (2022, written with authors from Oxford PV, so take it with whatever size NaCl dose is appropriate): https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/se/d2se00096b https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/se/d2se0... Surely, since this study relied heavily on empirical data, they would have used empirically measured degradation rates in their models? Well, nope. Check out these gems: "Oxford PV succeeded in mitigating stability-related deficits and aims at providing future buyers of their modules with the industry-standard 25 year performance guarantee." So, _aims at_. "Due to the proven stability improvements [_citation needed_], no distinction is made between the PST [perovskite-on-silicon tandem] and SHJ [silicon heterojunction] modules with regard to the degradation rate." So, they ASSUME the exact same degradation rate as silicon heterjunction solar cells. Sure, if the degradation rates are truly equal (or even, not terribly worse for PST) then I would believe. But the claim of lower LCOE today (compared to SHJ? they don't say) needs some more evidence, because this is an extraordinary claim in my opinion.
- akamaka 2y agoPresumably the utility wouldn’t have purchased these panels if they weren’t priced appropriately. If you’re asking if Oxford can make these profitably, the answer is an obvious “no” because this is part of an initial production run meant to prove the product in the field.
- GlibMonkeyDeath 2y agoPresumably, but I wonder - people also said the Walgreen's deal with Theranos was proof the technology must work as advertised, but we all know how that worked out. The fact that I can't find any lifetime data on these panels is what I find really disturbing - that is the #1 problem with perovskite-based cells, and if they really have solved the degradation problem they would be shouting it from the rooftops and publishing their data. Every claim they make about cost hinges on the details of the degradation curves. I'm not the only one who knows this to be the case, BTW: From https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/05/24/perovskites-move-into-production/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/05/24/perovskites-move-into... " “None of these companies can guarantee the stability of their modules for 25 years,” said Jülich’s Ding. Despite promising results in the laboratory, the durability of perovskite solar cells remains a challenge – both alone and in tandem devices. There is a lack of concrete information from the manufacturers, as well as a lack of measurement data from long-term outdoor use or standards for tough tests that simulate real-life loads of up to 25 years." I'd love to be wrong, but my prediction is there will be a one-time buy, and the news will go quiet about this. Perovskite has a niche, but it isn't ready for utility-scale solar.
- fred_is_fred 2y agoDoes 24% efficient mean that 76% of the suns radiation is being either reflected or turned into heat (or something else)? To ask another way, if panels were 100% efficient (I know this is not possible), what would that be like?
- euroderf 2y agoThe panels are dark, so I guess that 76% is mostly converted to heat. So you may ask what is the contribution to global heating. I've read that enough panels to power society would only subtract 0.1% from Earth's albedo.
- thehappypm 2y agoCaptured solar energy always eventually gets turned back into heat. The solar panel might temporarily convert it to another form, but eventually, it'll be turned back to waste heat after all is said and done. So the net for energy absorption is basically if the solar panel was a very dark, highly absorptive color. Which, of course, much of the earth is already covered in, such as the roofs that many solar panels already sit on. If the panels were 100% efficient, the heat would just move around and none of the energy would be radiated back to space, so it would be similar to a Vantablack level of absorption of energy.
- Siecje 2y agoI'm against lead but I'm curious why people don't complain about brass?