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"The fact that they’re “so cheap to make,” she added, means they will only have to reach 7.5 per cent efficiency before they will be commercially competitive w
by grannyg00se 13y ago
"The fact that they’re “so cheap to make,” she added, means they will only have to reach 7.5 per cent efficiency before they will be commercially competitive with conventional energy sources such as coal-electric generation."
How does that make sense? If I have to cover my entire yard with this stuff to get a decent amount of power that doesn't compete well.
- eigenvector 13y agoThey're clearly referring to commercial energy production (i.e. solar farms) not DG applications like rooftop solar. People don't commonly have coal-fired thermal plants in their yards either.
- jccooper 13y agoAnd what efficiency are they at now? Must be really terrible. University press release doesn't say, and article is paywalled (for science!). Maybe at the scale they're currently at they don't even know. Good luck to them getting it higher; thin film silicon can get up to 20% cell efficiency, and should eventually be pretty cheap, so they'll have to get it reasonably efficient to be useful.
- umsm 13y agoWell, how about not thinking of reducing your dependence on conventional energy sources to zero, but to reduce it down to 20%. If it would cost you $1k to purchase and install, but it would save you $1k in 5 years, wouldn't it be worth it? I thought of it more in terms of "baby steps" instead of covering my entire yard.