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Roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells under ambient room conditions

nature.com

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Re: Roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells under ambient room conditions

#91

Post by pfdietz »

gergi137 wrote: post #90
beanjuice wrote: post #53

My two cents having formerly worked in perovskites trying to upscale the process: Perovskites are exciting (or were exciting) because they have a high theoretical efficiency, are relatively simple to prepare, and the "worst" component in them is lead (an incredibly abundant material). The big problem with them is that they are famously horrifically unstable in ambient conditions. Roll-to-roll processing means that yo…

Which rare earth minerals go into solar cells?

No rare earth minerals are in solar cells. This is a famously bullshitty meme that was being propagated by Michael Shellenberger.

Re: Roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells under ambient room conditions

#92

Post by pfdietz »

refulgentis wrote: post #82
KennyBlanken wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar panels "produced from rare earth minerals" is "under-reported" because they are not made from rare earth minerals , and further: the minor metals they are dependent upon are byproducts of refining base metals, ie there isn't much additional impact from using them; we already make them. I'm not really sure how someone who supposedly worked in solar panel research would think rare earth metals are used in solar p…

This is true: i.e. they use rare metals not rare earth metals . On HN, I hope we can share a correction like that respectfully: after all, they gave good info, except for a one-word slip of the tongue. The critique seems to extend beyond correcting that error, becoming confrontational, questioning motivation and honesty with phrases like "supposedly worked in." and the long bit defending lifespan and enviromental imp…

Which rare metals do they use? Silver for contact wires? If silver supplies were inadequate (they're not) these could be substituted for with copper, if a barrier layer was included between it and the silicon.

Re: Roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells under ambient room conditions

#93

Post by pfdietz »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #29

Here is the graph of exponential installed solar capacity [1]. Like Moore’s law, continuous technological innovation and investment will be required to keep the pace. We just hit 1 terawatt— and doubling time seems to be about every 3 years. So… 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,512,1028, 2056 terawatts in 30 years? With 20% capacity, that’s equivalent to >300,000 Million Tons of Oil (MToE) per year. Current global energy consump…

> So… 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,512,1028, 2056 terawatts

Ah, a power series.

Re: Roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells under ambient room conditions

#94

Post by pfdietz »

feoren wrote: post #62
jandrese wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, the classic case of seeing the bottom half of an S curve and projecting it out to infinite exponential growth. The number of times things have experienced infinite exponential growth in all of history starting from the Big Bang: 0.

Nobody said "infinite". The upper asymptote of an S-curve is often called its "carrying capacity". We expect an inflection point about halfway toward this point. What do you think the maximum capacity of global solar energy is? The total amount of solar energy hitting Earth is about 4.4 * 10^16 watts -- 44,000 Terawatts. If we covered 1% of the Earth in solar panels at a meager 10% efficiency, that's 44 Terawatts --…

> 44,000 TW

Check your arithmetic; it's considerably more than that.

Re: Roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells under ambient room conditions

#95

Post by pfdietz »

naasking wrote: post #88
philipkglass wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be able to generate 1.14 kWh at the panel level if you kept the panel pointed directly at the sun throughout the day [1]. This is called "2 axis tracking" and it was sometimes used for solar farms when solar panels were much more expensive. Now that panels are much cheaper, 2 axis tracking has practically vanished from the market. The added expense and mechanical complexity isn't worth it. Single axis tracking,…

> which include a moderate (near room temperature) panel temperature. Panels lose some efficiency as they heat up, which means that they don't perform as well as you might naively expect in the middle of the summer. This is why vertical solar panels are becoming a thing, the additional cooling benefits increase output up to or beyond the optimal angle to the sun, and the better cooling also prolongs their life.

And they work better in winter if there's snow.

Re: Roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells under ambient room conditions

#96

Post by [deleted] »

jandrese wrote: post #45
dr_dshiv wrote: post #29

Here is the graph of exponential installed solar capacity [1]. Like Moore’s law, continuous technological innovation and investment will be required to keep the pace. We just hit 1 terawatt— and doubling time seems to be about every 3 years. So… 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,512,1028, 2056 terawatts in 30 years? With 20% capacity, that’s equivalent to >300,000 Million Tons of Oil (MToE) per year. Current global energy consump…

Ahh, the classic case of seeing the bottom half of an S curve and projecting it out to infinite exponential growth. The number of times things have experienced infinite exponential growth in all of history starting from the Big Bang: 0.

[deleted]

Re: Roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells under ambient room conditions

#97

Post by bufferoverflow »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #29

Here is the graph of exponential installed solar capacity [1]. Like Moore’s law, continuous technological innovation and investment will be required to keep the pace. We just hit 1 terawatt— and doubling time seems to be about every 3 years. So… 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,512,1028, 2056 terawatts in 30 years? With 20% capacity, that’s equivalent to >300,000 Million Tons of Oil (MToE) per year. Current global energy consump…

> So… 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,512,1028, 2056 terawatt

Multiplying by 2 is hard. Let's go shopping!

Re: Roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells under ambient room conditions

#98

Post by mderazon »

RisingFusion wrote: post #83
Workaccount2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been waiting for consumer level panels to get cheaper forever. You'd think by now that you could get a 200W panel for $50. But they have been the same $200 for what seems like a decade now (I suppose they didn't go up with inflation, but still)

In Germany, 405 Watt panels new can be had for 65 euros. The law allows up to 800W to be connected to homes with relatively little bureaucracy, as a balcony solar power plant which renters can install without modifying the building. This seems to have pushed the price down, so there are many 800W kits including panels, an inverter and cables available for under 400 euros.

Mind sharing a link to buy one? Not in Germany but am in Portugal looking to buy

Re: Roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells under ambient room conditions

#99

Post by dr_dshiv »

sp332 wrote: post #32
dr_dshiv wrote: post #29

Here is the graph of exponential installed solar capacity [1]. Like Moore’s law, continuous technological innovation and investment will be required to keep the pace. We just hit 1 terawatt— and doubling time seems to be about every 3 years. So… 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,512,1028, 2056 terawatts in 30 years? With 20% capacity, that’s equivalent to >300,000 Million Tons of Oil (MToE) per year. Current global energy consump…

That chart ends at 2022, but 2023 was an even bigger year than you would expect from that curve, with over 500GW of new solar installed. https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023/executive-summar...

Also: “ In 2023, an estimated 96% of newly installed, utility-scale solar PV and onshore wind capacity had lower generation costs than new coal and natural gas plants. In addition, three-quarters of new wind and solar PV plants offered cheaper power than existing fossil fuel facilities.”

Re: Roll-to-roll fabricated perovskite solar cells under ambient room conditions

#100

Post by dr_dshiv »

pfdietz wrote: post #94
feoren wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody said "infinite". The upper asymptote of an S-curve is often called its "carrying capacity". We expect an inflection point about halfway toward this point. What do you think the maximum capacity of global solar energy is? The total amount of solar energy hitting Earth is about 4.4 * 10^16 watts -- 44,000 Terawatts. If we covered 1% of the Earth in solar panels at a meager 10% efficiency, that's 44 Terawatts --…

> 44,000 TW Check your arithmetic; it's considerably more than that.

173,000 terawatts [1]

So, 1% at 20% capacity is 346 terawatts. That seems like a reasonable upper limit for earth systems.

[1] https://sos.noaa.gov/catalog/live-programs/energy-on-a-spher...

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