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Solar panels disguised as terracotta tiles in Pompeii

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Re: Solar panels disguised as terracotta tiles in Pompeii

#61

Post by SamBam »

skrbjc wrote: post #43
r3trohack3r wrote: post #22

These would look great in Arizona. Anyone know the ballpark for roofing a McMansion? Their site doesn’t have pricing.

This page has pricing: https://www.dyaqua.it/invisiblesolar/_en/rooftile-invisible-... Looks like 7k euros for I think that is 9 square meters. Not sure what a typical solar install goes for now, but based on this it would cost 70k just in materials for my 1k sqft roof. Doesn't seem economical.

> 1k sqft

I know what you mean, but at first glance this looks like an unholy matrimony of metric and imperial.

Re: Solar panels disguised as terracotta tiles in Pompeii

#62

Post by mcronce »

galangalalgol wrote: post #53
bloodyplonker22 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked in the solar industry. As a reference, the average efficiency of "normal" solar panels is around 16% today.

Does that mean that in high intensity regions you'd need active cooling or is that not a problem?

This doesn't answer your question, but I really wish someone would offer off-the-shelf panels with tubing on the back to hook up water lines. It would be dope to cool my panels and preheat my hot water at the same time.

Re: Solar panels disguised as terracotta tiles in Pompeii

#63

Post by mcronce »

dhosek wrote: post #56
selcuka wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Future archaeologists will probably have access to the HackerNews archive. Archaeology is not as fun in the future as it is today.

Nah, in the event of societal collapse, pretty much all digital information storage will likely be lost forever. Even without societal collapse, a lot of digital information storage is likely lost forever. As near as I can tell, some of the software that I released into the public domain (when open source was still very much a niche thing) in the 80s has vanished completely. I’d kind of like to find my VMS¹ and CMS²…

You mean in 500 years, nobody's going to dig up the server rack in my house and figure out how to rig the Ceph cluster back up?

Re: Solar panels disguised as terracotta tiles in Pompeii

#64

Post by tormeh »

NL807 wrote: post #60
zbrozek wrote: post #40

Artisanal production - nope nope nope nope nope Give me a lights-out factory without a single human being churning out a gazillion units per day with 100% test coverage please. Anything else will have all kinds of quality control and reliability problems when trying to produce a bunch of nominally-identical widgets.

It's a niche product for a very specific environment.

Hopefully not for long.

Re: Solar panels disguised as terracotta tiles in Pompeii

#65

Post by maximus-decimus »

mcronce wrote: post #63
dhosek wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, in the event of societal collapse, pretty much all digital information storage will likely be lost forever. Even without societal collapse, a lot of digital information storage is likely lost forever. As near as I can tell, some of the software that I released into the public domain (when open source was still very much a niche thing) in the 80s has vanished completely. I’d kind of like to find my VMS¹ and CMS²…

You mean in 500 years, nobody's going to dig up the server rack in my house and figure out how to rig the Ceph cluster back up?

That server rack clearly the the Rosetta Stone of the future. It is the key to the understanding of all our current jargon.

Re: Solar panels disguised as terracotta tiles in Pompeii

#66

Post by midoridensha »

maxwell wrote: post #52
yen223 wrote: post #42

The thought of future archaeologists being thoroughly confused by Roman terracotta tiles that apparently generates electricity amuses me.

Sufficiently advanced civilizations seem likely to integrate energy generation technology to the point of invisibility, optimizing for aesthetics and potentially going classical and opting for something that looks like ancient Rome or Egypt. It seems unlikely that the pyramids were power plants and obelisks energy receivers [1], but maybe power plants of the future will look like the pyramids and energy receivers lik…

>but maybe power plants of the future will look like the pyramids and energy receivers like obelisks.

Unless people in the future become religious nuts even worse than today's, I don't see why they'd waste so much space and resources on power-generating burial mounds. The pyramids may be impressive for a primitive civilization to build, but they were functionally completely useless and just a collosal waste of manpower, materials, and space.

This is quite unlike solar-power-collecting terra cotta roof tiles: roofs serve a real purpose, on buildings that people live and work in.

Re: Solar panels disguised as terracotta tiles in Pompeii

#67

Post by mcronce »

maximus-decimus wrote: post #65
mcronce wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean in 500 years, nobody's going to dig up the server rack in my house and figure out how to rig the Ceph cluster back up?

That server rack clearly the the Rosetta Stone of the future. It is the key to the understanding of all our current jargon.

It does contain many, many memes, which - along with emojis - are the hieroglyphs of our time. There are certainly worse legacies I could leave.

Re: Solar panels disguised as terracotta tiles in Pompeii

#68

Post by hammock »

maxwell wrote: post #52
yen223 wrote: post #42

The thought of future archaeologists being thoroughly confused by Roman terracotta tiles that apparently generates electricity amuses me.

Sufficiently advanced civilizations seem likely to integrate energy generation technology to the point of invisibility, optimizing for aesthetics and potentially going classical and opting for something that looks like ancient Rome or Egypt. It seems unlikely that the pyramids were power plants and obelisks energy receivers [1], but maybe power plants of the future will look like the pyramids and energy receivers lik…

Ancient people worshipped and brag about their favored relationships with energy sources (the sun)

Modern people hide their energy givers and their dependency on them (gosh forbid your tv has power cords showing)

Re: Solar panels disguised as terracotta tiles in Pompeii

#69

Post by positr0n »

kristopolous wrote: post #35
burkaman wrote: post #23

Here's the product datasheet: https://www.dyaqua.it/invisiblesolar/_en/documents/rooftile-... An independent research center lists the efficiency as 0.111: https://integratedpv.eurac.edu/en/products/modules/invisible... Anybody know how that compares to an average panel on the market today? From a quick search it seems like the best you can actually buy is 0.22 efficiency. Edit: The best available on this site is 0.2…

That's fine, they look great. Realizing we've got stuff looking like that that generates freakin' electricity is amazing.

Given the poorer efficiency, wouldn't it be better use of limited money and resources to put regular tiles on houses and normal solar panels somewhere else?

(Honest question. I've always wondered why residential rooftop solar, especially since it's usually government subsidized, makes sense anywhere in the world.)

Re: Solar panels disguised as terracotta tiles in Pompeii

#70

Post by nick123567 »

hammock wrote: post #68
maxwell wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sufficiently advanced civilizations seem likely to integrate energy generation technology to the point of invisibility, optimizing for aesthetics and potentially going classical and opting for something that looks like ancient Rome or Egypt. It seems unlikely that the pyramids were power plants and obelisks energy receivers [1], but maybe power plants of the future will look like the pyramids and energy receivers lik…

Ancient people worshipped and brag about their favored relationships with energy sources (the sun) Modern people hide their energy givers and their dependency on them (gosh forbid your tv has power cords showing)

>>modern people hide their ... power cords

Except those decorative halogen lights that hang from the + and - wires. As a kid I was messing with a pendant light over my kitchen island and accidentally bridged those wires together!

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