Assuming this stuff is the greatest thing since the silicone chip, who owns it? Evidently we paid for it, is it in the public domain?
Posted on 01/15/2017 11:17:42 PM PST by aquila48
Solar cells made from an inexpensive and increasingly popular material called perovskite can more efficiently turn sunlight into electricity using a new technique to sandwich two types of perovskite into a single photovoltaic cell.
Perovskite solar cells are made of a mix of organic molecules and inorganic elements that together capture light and convert it into electricity, just like today’s more common silicon-based solar cells. Perovskite photovoltaic devices, however, can be made more easily and cheaply than silicon and on a flexible rather than rigid substrate. The first perovskite solar cells could go on the market next year, and some have been reported to capture 20 percent of the sun’s energy.
In a paper appearing online today in advance of publication in the journal Nature Materials, University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists report a new design that already achieves an average steady-state efficiency of 18.4 percent, with a high of 21.7 percent and a peak efficiency of 26 percent.
“We have set the record now for different parameters of perovskite solar cells, including the efficiency,” said senior author Alex Zettl, a UC Berkeley professor of physics, senior faculty member at Berkeley Lab and member of the Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute. “The efficiency is higher than any other perovskite cell – 21.7 percent – which is a phenomenal number, considering we are at the beginning of optimizing this.”
“This has a great potential to be the cheapest photovoltaic on the market, plugging into any home solar system,” said Onur Ergen, the lead author of the paper and a UC Berkeley physics graduate student.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.berkeley.edu ...
Yep, slow degrade is what exists now at about 2% to 5% over 10 years for silicon PV systems.
Rapid degrade is an engineering problem that in this case likely already has a solution proposal that is not being talked about.
Photovoltaics are still a troublesome thing to have installed on roofs. Without being able to disable them, firefighters won’t try to chop through them. Maybe a photovoltaic that requires some kind of priming power to keep in power generation mode would prove more attractive. Cur the priming power and now they can be chopped through safely.
Cur => CUT.
Maybe perovskite itself has an inherent degradation issue. You get light and flexible at the cost of longevity. So any design using them has to be viable taking into account all the characteristics.
Most irritating to me is that Few components are manufactured to be interchangeable / replaceable / repairable with other brands.
I am reminded of the solar hot water craze 30 years ago.......I would guess less than 5% of those systems are still operational. As manufacturers go bankrupt their parts can become almost impossible to get.
I see no efforts to standardize the interchangeability of components ....
I do understand they are a fire hazard. Their modules do not require grounding. Their patents which I follow and read some are tremendously complicated as to electrical design features. I have an indirect investment interest in the aluminum ink they use—they can use foil aluminum also.
Government doesn’t need to finance or subsidize private use of anything to make a difference.
Suppose the government was offered thorium reactors to power all their bases, buildings, and naval vessels ? All the technology needs to do is be cheaper than the alternatives and the government AS A CUSTOMER willing to be first can establish an industry. The government is a HUGE customer in way too many areas, but it is also a FOOLISH customer.
The only problem I have with such things is that the government always seems to pay up front, the end product is never done on schedule and doesn’t work as well as promised, and then the government just writes it off because it is taxpayer money and nobody will be held accountable for losing it. Government grants are just another form of it.I wish the government would never pay for any product until it is delivered and working to spec. No other customer would be so foolish.
I’ve been reading “news” reports like this my whole life. Yet NOTHING ever seems to come of it. Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the roof of the White House 40 years ago. 40 years! Didn’t work then, doesn’t work now. All we ever get are periodic reports of “breakthroughs”, yet there’s still an electric line attached to my house (built over 60 years ago) that runs back to the coal-fired power plant and pipes running back to the nearest natural gas field. I’ve been waiting for the real-world applications of whizz-bang tech-energy “breakthroughs” all my life, and I fear I will never see them implemented before I die. Will it be the same for you too?
You have most of the puzzle here.
The part missing is ‘What do you want it to do?’
Most people do not use the humble flashlight battery for a daily power source. So it only has to be convenient, have a long shelf life and be inexpensive enough to justify its occasional use.
Today’s photovoltaic systems are too expensive and don't last long enough for powering a home day to day without government subsidies. But if you want to have a bank to power your camper occasionally it might work for you so you don’t have to use up your camper’s fuel to power your refrigerator and TV. Because you don’t have the panel exposed everyday it should last the life of the camper.
If this new technology can lower the price of the solar cell to the point that it breaks even with its initial cost amortized over the life of the system it would be remarkable. If not it will still be a seller for uses such as the camper industry.
I guess the missing part is will this new technology bring the photovoltaic industry to the point of being able to survive without government assistance? Can the industry make it in the rough and tumble world of the free market?
20 to 27% for the silicon based cells. While these are a bit lower, if they really come out cheaper and can be placed on curved surfaces, it might make sense to be on more roofs. Solar still won’t replace baseload power.. I really hope Trump’s energy initiative puts money into Thorium.
Assuming this stuff is the greatest thing since the silicone chip, who owns it? Evidently we paid for it, is it in the public domain?
Obviously the flashlight battery has a different literal utilization profile.
Maybe I could have said a car battery (gas powered or diesel, not electric or hybrid).
It’ll stick it out for a decade or more sometimes, but eventually gets too weak for what it is needed for. (Part of the price paid here is in buying a battery that is stronger than necessary up front.)
I believe a free enough market will drive a kind of evolution by pull, if there is an evolution path. Each improvement will open up some use that was not practical before.
Actually I thought the flashlight battery was a good analogy for the present use profile that the photovoltaic cell presently naturally fits.
In a free market the photovoltaic cell can not compete on its own against electric utilities for supplying power to consumers and industry. It in the real world the photovoltaic cell is an occasional use device. Its real consumers are campers and preppers.
It does not matter how efficient a solar cell is. There is only so much radiation from the sun.
Major Breakthrough!
Solar cell now 0.000000000001 percent more efficient.
And they re-positioned the Sun for 24 hour coverage.
* cough * junk science * cough *
I’m with you. I read reports about all of these great battery ‘breakthroughs’ that never seem to make it out of the ‘battery journal’...and that’s understandable because the type of battery needed for an electric car, for example, will get exposed to more crap than even a typical Trump voter, from extreme temperatures, vibrations, accelerations, crashes, humidity, etc.
So, let them do their research...it is always possible that something new will break out and be usable...but yea, expect 20 technologies (at least) to be talked about as the next greatest thing...then quietly disappear.
-—pie in the sky-—
but, you see....... it doesn’t matter. It happened while Obama was president. We are experiencing the three or four weeks of building the historic paper record of the Obama legacy.
Solar energy breakthrough to remove the Soylandra blight stain, Standing up to Russia moving troops to Poland, the UN peace initive to forever end the Israel/PIA wars.......
Thorium isn't the panacea people paint it as. Nor is the pebble-bed reactor. And it still produces fissionable (U-233) that can be weaponized. As a chemist, I shudder at the potential materials problems of working with all those fluoride salts.
I followed the alternative energy scene very closely at that time. Needless to say, I was horrified when I saw Obama repeating many of the same stupidities of that era.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.