37% Efficient Affordable Panels in less than Three Years

[zboss]

https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/19/th...our-roof-soon/

[billknny]

Any day now....

You'll find such postings every year for the past ten...

[zboss]

Originally Posted by billknny

Any day now....



You'll find such postings every year for the past ten...

So what?

[denverd0n]

So billknny probably feels a lot like I do... I've heard it before, and I hope it's true this time, but I'm not going to get my hopes up too much. I'll believe it when I see it.

[Suijin]

They don’t even have a manufacturer yet. If this was ready for prime time you can bet it would have been jumped on. Also sounds like some aspect of this, aligning the cells with the lenses, is mechanized. No thanks lol.

The consensus opinion is that we might see 25% real world efficiency in 5-10 years, based on improvements to existing tech. Obviously new tech might emerge but I would not hold my breath. The idea in the article is not groundbreaking and I suspect it comes with some problems in the area of practicality and cost, we’ll see.

And I would love more efficient panels and would pay a premium for them given my limited real estate.

[sailorboy1]

Sounds that they think the solar panels manufacturers are their target customer.But I think this is wrong because there isn't anything in it for the manufacturer to just sell fewer panels.

But to consumers that have panels and no more space it sounds promising. And to cruisers enough more so. I just replaced my single solar panel with 2 new ones. But I could have just added a light concentrated to the top of the old one .............. well that would have been easier and probably a lot less $$$$

[jimbunyard]

And still no 'revolution' in the basic P/V technology, which suggests they're bumping up against a physical limit, perhaps analogous to the same line they're bumping up against with microprocessors...

[zboss]

Originally Posted by Suijin

They don’t even have a manufacturer yet. If this was ready for prime time you can bet it would have been jumped on. Also sounds like some aspect of this, aligning the cells with the lenses, is mechanized. No thanks lol.

The consensus opinion is that we might see 25% real world efficiency in 5-10 years, based on improvements to existing tech. Obviously new tech might emerge but I would not hold my breath. The idea in the article is not groundbreaking and I suspect it comes with some problems in the area of practicality and cost, we’ll see.

And I would love more efficient panels and would pay a premium for them given my limited real estate.

Regardless of how one feels about this technology, or any technology, it's fun to stay apprised of the current field of options. Your 25% efficiency is based on new materials, not application of existing materials and technologies in novel ways.

The thing I appreciated about this technology is that is doesn't require new silicon or new materials. It's basically an engineering solution using existing materials and introducing a new way of thinking about the problem. It appears they are introducing what is essentially mini solar concentrators onto each cell which are similar to an insects eye and how it collects light, so you can have existing 20-21% efficient panels that are able to collect more energy. I wonder if current 3d printers could print the concentrators to be put over an existing panel.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

And still no 'revolution' in the basic P/V technology, which suggests they're bumping up against a physical limit, perhaps analogous to the same line they're bumping up against with microprocessors...

Hard drives were supposed to go away 20 years ago, but they just kept getting bigger and cheaper and even though there was better tech, it was more costly, so I guess even today there are hard drives