Originally posted by epiphinehas Yes, but it seems a bit more practical for me to cover my roof with solar panels than erect a giant wind turbine in my backyard.
You notice in the article, they are very tightlipped about the efficiency and costs of these new cells, nice idea but will it pan out in the marketplace? They have to be more forthcoming with data. My guess is the picture shows the '50 Kw' unit on their own roof. If that is the case, these cells are very ineffiecient indeed. Those are a lot of cells for just 50 Kw of energy.
Originally posted by sonhouse His point was just that the energy storage system is useful for any form of intermittent energy supply, not just solar. Of course wind and wave power is just solar delayed.
Point taken. Sorry if I came off sounding petulant.
Originally posted by sonhouse [b]You notice in the article, they are very tightlipped about the efficiency
They quote cell efficiency at 14% but nothing on module efficiency, I think BP solar give a module efficiency of 15% to 18% depending on the product.
It would be nice to see the mathematical model which reckons they get an extra 20% from their design, unless it’s from experimental data, interesting idea though.
Originally posted by jonevery They quote cell efficiency at 14% but nothing on module efficiency, I think BP solar give a module efficiency of 15% to 18% depending on the product.
It would be nice to see the mathematical model which reckons they get an extra 20% from their design, unless it’s from experimental data, interesting idea though.
I missed that 14% number. What I wonder is why they need to pave the cells all the way round the tube? Why don't they do just half the circumferance or make a series of bends like corrugated aluminum, seems like that would be cheaper yet and accomplish the same thing.
I can only assume that as a thin film it’s easy (compared to wafer based PV) to form a cylinder, which if the substrate is transparent the incident photons make one complete pass with the non absorbed component scattering through to the other side of the cylinder. But I guess they’re not going to reveal too much of their design or data, for example are the cylinders one thin film cell or a number in series? CIGS appears to be a great material but I’d be interested in the cost, compared to say a similar instillation in polycrystalline Si.
Originally posted by jonevery I can only assume that as a thin film it’s easy (compared to wafer based PV) to form a cylinder, which if the substrate is transparent the incident photons make one complete pass with the non absorbed component scattering through to the other side of the cylinder. But I guess they’re not going to reveal too much of their design or data, for example are the ...[text shortened]... but I’d be interested in the cost, compared to say a similar instillation in polycrystalline Si.
It seems that the biggest benefit cited is the cheap and quick installation. If Solar Power is to be employed on a mass scale, the cost of installation would be of paramount importance.
Originally posted by epiphinehas It seems that the biggest benefit cited is the cheap and quick installation. If Solar Power is to be employed on a mass scale, the cost of installation would be of paramount importance.
I would agree that installation costs would be quite a contributing factor, the only data I have is quite old and based on silicon, for example, wafer cost 20%( given the fluctuating price of silicon which I could see taking up to 50% dependent on the market), cell manufacturing 20%, module raw materials 25% and installation 35%. If CIGS really can reduce the process costs instillation will be one, if not the dominant cost.
Is anyone familiar with the supply of Indium, Gallium and Selenium?
Originally posted by jonevery I would agree that installation costs would be quite a contributing factor, the only data I have is quite old and based on silicon, for example, wafer cost 20%( given the fluctuating price of silicon which I could see taking up to 50% dependent on the market), cell manufacturing 20%, module raw materials 25% and installation 35%. If CIGS really can reduce t ...[text shortened]... if not the dominant cost.
Is anyone familiar with the supply of Indium, Gallium and Selenium?
Pretty low and expensive, especially gallium, half of the famous Gallium Arsenide semiconductor group. We here at Cyoptics use Indium Phosphide and quantum wells to get optical gain and modulation capablities.
Originally posted by sonhouse [b]Pretty low and expensive, especially gallium,
Material supply could be seen as a problem with a mass uptake of CIGS technology, but I suspect that no PV material will dominate for the foreseeable future it will be application specific.
Are you familiar with intermediate band gap solar cells using quantum wells?
What’s not really made clear is whether any advances have been made in the UNSW PERL cell or is the increase in efficiency just due to the change in the standard?
The Coming Solar Revolution
21 Oct '08 05:26
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