71–80 of 143 posts
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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.
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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?
I'm aware of several large-scale solar situated in hot regions with no active cooling, so I guess my answer to your question is no, high effeciency panels in hot environments do not need active cooling.
Roof tiles are a different question. There's no airflow underneath them. So they probably get hot. Hot enough to matter? That's hard to say. Do they have the same thermal properties as a regular tile? What is the impact on building temperature? These would be factors to consider during construction. More insulation, better airflow, and do on.
Incidentally since they are not flat (at least not in the picture) that likely accounts for the lower effeciency).
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The specs show it as .11 efficiency, and normal panels are about .22, so like litterally 1/2. That's pretty darn good for being visually appealing.
on the other side, normal panels will usually cover part of the roof. those tiles will cover entire roof. hence even if efficiency lower, total output will be higher
If you have a flat roof then all the space is available, and depending on your latitude flat can be a good orientation, especially in summer.
Pompei roofs do not appear to be flat, but they do seem to be very low pitch, and the panels are curved, so the whole roof is likely in play.
Back to your main point, effeciency in itself doesn't matter. If you have enough space, you just install more. That drives up the installation cost though, and things like cleaning them etc.
Of course ultimately everything is space constrained, but generating 11% is better than 0%.
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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.)
These are not tiles you would use for general solar production.
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…
I have worked in the solar industry. As a reference, the average efficiency of "normal" solar panels is around 16% today.
Didn't Tesla initially have a plan to disguise solar panels as slate?
I don't know about initially, but yes, Tesla has a solar tile project. It is mostly being installed by third parties now and is very expensive compared to an asphalt roof with panels. https://www.tesla.com/solarroof At announcement, different designs were available, but in the end I think they've only offered slate.
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Monocrystalline Si has a 1.2 eV band gap iirc, meaning it absorbs everything smaller (more energetic) than ~ 1100 nm. Our eyes see, what, 200-600 nm? Removing the 200-600 nm bit leaves you with approx 50% of the energy left between 600 and 1100 nm, glancing at [1] This is all VERY back of the envelope... but I think these lose around half of the energy you'd get out of conventional panels. [1] https://www.researchgat…
Human visual range is generally 400-700 nm, although some small responsiveness remains up to 800 nm and down to 360. Below 400 nm is usually considered ionizing radiation. But even a ~20% reflection coefficient can make something appear "opaque" if viewed in sunlight and complete darkness behind it.
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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.)
Transmission isn't free and the surface is already there.
Both places are fine.
E.g. https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2022/06/08/melbourne-h...
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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 manpow…
That's how you show affluence. With all the resources we have, we don't have enough to waste them. From that point of view, that civilization was much more than primitive. Also: [1].
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession#Ancient_Egypt...