Scientists JUST Broke the Solar Panel World Record! This is HUGE!
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- Опубліковано 18 чер 2024
- Quantum Well Solar! Check out Lomi, the electric composter that works in hours! links.pela.earth/twobit
I think solar power is one of the great weapons in our fight for a better future. But what would you say if I told you current solar panels are only about 20% efficient, and that scientists just discovered a breakthrough solar panel that's nearly 40% efficient? Game changer right? But what's the deal, are they coming anytime soon, and is there a drawback? Let's see how these new solar panels could really shape the future of solar power. This is the Unbelievable Story of How Scientists Just Broke the Solar Panel World Record! This is HUGE!
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Here is the stuff we're going to cover...
two bit da vinci,solar panels,solar energy,solar panels for home,solar panels how they work,solar energy 101,quantum well solar,future solar tech,what are the most efficient solar panels,how efficient are solar,how efficient are solar panels,the future of solar,two bit da vinci solar,going solar,new solar tech,solar tech,quantum well,quantum solar panels,solar cells explanation,solar cells types,Unbelievable Story of NEW Record Breaking Solar Panel! Scientists JUST Broke the Solar Panel World Record! This is HUGE!
00:00 Introduction
00:45 Solar Panels and efficiency
05:41 Add
06:49 New Panels cost
07:30 Why does it Matter - Наука та технологія
Actually, MicroLink Devices (near Chicago) licenses NREL triple junction IMM solar cells for mass production. Our cells are about 34% efficient in current production and are very light weight. They are expensive but are being used for UAV applications like Airbus's Zephyr which flies indefinitely in the stratosphere (> 60,000 feet altitude). Our cells are also being used in space and we expect to bring down the costs with greater mass production in the future.
How expensive, a real price, and what would be the payback time if used in a home panel?
Have the chinese stolen the tech yet ??
You have to think that EV Trucks with this greater energy density would be useful on 18m trailers, they have around 80M2 of useable space 1 x side and the top (you would get some power from the other side just not much) so 30 - 65Kwh (back of a cigarette packet calc) would really make them viable vs fuel costs don't you think?
@@dmbrookfield interesting. That calc is for the container, not the truck, right?
If so, the problem is how the transport industry currently works, with containers going from ship to truck to truck. The containers are like a generic currency. They’re commodities. I could see high efficiency solar panel ones only in the far future when such panels are quite cheap.
@@dmbrookfield I mean, obviously, we need them right away. It just doesn’t seem to work with how the world work now.
Lomi uses tons of energy to create hardly any dirt. Use a compost pile instead
Or just earthworms.
Thunderf00f has a good video about it - although always take him with a grain is salt…
Definitely not 'pie in the sky', even if it never comes into production. It's still necessary research and demonstrates a potential, even if it's never realized. And, of course, it might be game-changing...you never know.
well said, and I agree
It's not expensive to do and it allows them to market higher efficiency, so they absolutely will do it. It's win, win for them and the consumer and has those two prerequisites and they do love their marketing wank and cheap ways to get it, lol, it's very hard for them to ignore. And they are being conservative about the gains, I've heard it can be bit higher and this wasn't the first place I heard about this new solar tech. So you can bet they will find a way to market that in such a fashion so as to maximize it as much as possible, squeeze every last percentage point out of it. Like they do with anything, including car mileage/efficiency.
@@MrBilld75 Efficiency alone is not marketable, only any benefits it enables.
@@lengould9262 True enough. It has to be able to deliver real world results. A sketchy proposition, when they are known to pump numbers up with ideal variables and conditions. The real world doesn't work like that.
Higher efficiency, especially something big like doubling from the current average today, that’s a big deal, and if they can get the price down, and I bet they will, this opens up a lot of possibilities, such as what was mentioned, like electric cars with solar panels on them at also, Electric planes augmented by solar panels on the wings and sun facing surfaces.
Collecting energy is so cheap and easy, the really hard part is storing it.
Really? Do you produce an energy collector? Or do you research & compare? If PV collectors were so cheap, research would stop. If they were efficient cars wouldn't need a battery for daytime power. But they aren't either, so a battery is needed. But both tech can replace all others for a decentralized grid.
@@1voluntaryist I have lived off grid for the last 29 years. Other than asking unrelated questions, what's your claim to fame?
I wouldn't say "really hard", but as of now it tends to be either resource intensive (batteries) or land intensive (pumped hydro). Still helluva lot better than fossil fuels
@@ThomasBomb45 Yep, that's what I mean by 'really hard', "resource intensive". And with the way the world is today, and the way it's going, it's not getting any easier. "Supply chain" is my first clue, all by design. imho.
yes Lead acid batteries are safe and cheap but they weigh a ton and store little for their weight..Lithium is still very expensive and can be very dangerous when they fail
Love to hear about these advances. In time it will impact all of us in very direct and beneficial ways. Thanks 🙂
Absolutely Filipe!
Always a pleasure to discover new inventions with you.
Keep up the great work, man !
🙏
Great video! Always love new innovations.
At first take, this sounds similar in importance to the introduction of pneumatic tires to the automotive industry. I especially appreciate your measured presentation. Thank you for the news.
Expansion of solar doesn't have to take up land. We have huge commercial buildings all over the country that could have solar installed, and the huge parking lots around them could have covered carports built that could also have solar on top. That would also give shade or protection from rain and snow.
Public buildings too! Schools for example. Add in battery powered buses with V2G technology, and the school can be a self sufficient power supplier in a power outage, a place for the community to go to excape heat/cold, have a hot shower, etc
You mean on a building top? Tall buildings give sides for installation but very inefficient due to poor exposure to sunlight in many areas of the world. In the northern hemisphere, above a certain latitude a slanted roof facing south is the best. You won't get the best exposure but it's good for home use. For commercial power generation you need panels to track the sun for the best power generation. That can be done on a mostly flat rooftop but adds complexity and weight.
@@johndoh5182 I'm talking about big-box stores and supermarkets, schools, factories, and other big, flat, suburban buildings. They should all be part of the grid. And not kidding about structures built over parking lots, for cars to park under, with solar panels on top. The cars would be sheltered from sun or rain, and all that asphalt real estate would be more justified.
I just got an idea, like the quantum tvs that samsung make, they use this quantum dots that change the wavelength of the light to whatever they want it depends on the diameter of this quantum dots, why cant they use a "reverse tv" that converts sunlight in 1 wavelength and tune the solar cell to THAT and get higher efficency
I really enjoy solar panel and battery news! Mahalo for bringing the latest info!
Great video, thanks for the balanced breakdown of the technology. Well done!
Multilayer solar cells aren't new. We've had them for decades. And this is a cell record, not a panel record, because no one will spend the extra money for this tech, and no manufacturer is designing a panel around them yet. It's a really important part of understanding solar tech. Labs break records every year, but few of these exotic designs every become a manufactured panel.
The better way to understand production solar is to know that modules are much cheaper than they have been, and the incentive to invest in newer more efficient panels is low. In fact, that is a real risk with solar. It's become a commodity, and the focus is on maintaining profit when manufacturing it. There's not much glory in developing a 27% efficient panel if it costs 30% more to produce. We should plan on using only slightly enhanced monocrystaline for a long time to come.
One improvement that does make sense is Sunpower's focus on longer life/lower degradation. Simple changes like moving the traces to where the sun don't shine is proving to make the panels more reliable.
I could easily see manufacturers of satellites spend the extra. Compared to the immense cost savings of having to lift less panel into space, the higher production cost is nearly irrelevant. (Assuming, of course, that durability and longevity are as good or better.)
All other factors being the same, if you double the output and the panel costs twice as much it would be a hit. In the US, installation as well as roof real estate are major cost factors. Twice as efficient panels would save money.
Once again, profiteering ruins everything.
@@pspeth According to the video, right now the cost of the better cells is still 6x per area or 3x per power output...
Awesome video! Keep them coming Ricky!
Keep them coming Ricky! Enjoy the knowledge dump and the optimism.
Will do Shaun!
I was working with a quantum well technology in the early 2000s often called lumeloid, patented by Alvin Marks. We used polarizing films made of polyacetylene doped with iodine to produce roughly 100 quadrillion quantum wells per square centimeter, wells being about 1 Angstrom diameter and on average about 500nanometers long. We could capture most of the light energy from infrared to ultraviolet, theoretically allowing a maximum of about 96% efficiency. Our difficulty was building the interdigitated electrode structure to carry the current from the quantum wells to a useful circuit. At the time the electrodes made the panels way too expensive, but this method is definitely worth pursuing considering the extremely high efficiency of converting proton energy to electrical energy.
as if the ordinary guy will know what you are talking about. I`m impressed though.
I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm not ordinary. I've seen ordinary. It's not for me.
Excellent article and great presentation! Enjoying the energy efficiency inspiration ✨️
Ray, good video man, but 10 years, so $180K for panels that last the same as a $20K system? Hmmm I'd rather get 2 of the old systems, generate twice the power but still be saving @ 2/9th the cost!
Ricky, thanks for sharing the lovely new breakthroughs that are happening in the lab these days, it is very exciting! One of the really terrible things that has been happening with Research and Development that gets far too little air play is the phenomenon of patenting and shelving massive breakthroughs. I think the biggest leap in human development will come from releasing the patents. I am unsure of the best energy source, I am invested in solar and batteries with firewood for heating and gas for my car. I am quite certain that many many ground breaking discoveries are hidden from the public. I want to see the veil get lifted on that tech and I want the veil to stay up so that future R&D does not die the way that it can in our current system
We’ll said Tom. Shelving away great things behind patents does bother me.
Hydrogen is getting some attention atm, too.
@@cherylreid2964 Hydrogen will be very limited. The infrastructure needed to be able to drive HEV like ICEV would be sickening and almost certainly lead to accidents and death from having thousands of pressurized delivery systems for storing hydrogen, to getting it into a vehicle, and then the fact it's pressurized in the vehicle.
The efficiency of hydrogen is TERRIBLE, and because you have to pay for every loss it's just not a good solution with small exceptions.
Solar panels might not be as efficient as wind energy but as was talked about it really doesn't matter. You don't HAVE to have high efficiency if you have space for panels AND cost of panels is cheap. Efficient panels, meaning efficiency to convert sunlight into electricity reduces the amount of space needed for the panels, but even now at about 22% solar is near the lowest cost energy to produce. The infrastructure for BEV already exists, power lines. It would need to be improved but that's happening. You also need more power generation and the charging stations, which take up less space than a pump for gasoline.
Hydrogen has too many conversions. Every conversion is a loss of energy. But the infrastructure once again would be the sickening cost of it.
Good presentation. Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is better for many electrical energy applications. When needed to achieve this extraordinary efficiency the extra cost may be warranted. My issue is to develop this technology on a massive scale may be unlikely. One of the drawbacks of GaAs is how dangerous and toxic it is to work with. It is dangerous both if inhaled or congested. It is rarer than gold, making it roughly 1000 more expensive today than silicon. Therefore, it may remain at high cost. This material is used today in many specialized applications and when it is, the cost of containment and disposal is difficult and dangerous. Ironic isn't it, that such an environmentally dangerous material should be such a star in developing electrical and electronic components.
Enjoyed the video, as usual, great quality work here. I wasn't surprised hearing about the higher price, and years it will be before we could see these in the consumer market. Sad trombone moment for me was the shorter longevity, resolving that will be key.
Thank you!
@@ericalorraine7943lookup Priscilla Dearmin-Turner, this is her name online, she's the real investment prodigy since the crash and have help me recovered my loses
Financial management is a crucial topic that most tend to shy away from, and ends up haunting them in the near future
@@davidhudson3001Thank you, Going through her profile in her webpage, she smashed all her state certificate and accreditation🙏
A CNBC news host spoke so highly of this💕 woman Priscilla Dearmin-Turner and her loss prevention strategies been trying to get to her ever since didn’t know she was so accessible to the public
You Are a Very Good Speaker!!!.....You Speak Clearly and Explain Things In an Understanding Way!!.......Thanks!!
🙏
on the one hand....great to see progress in this area. on the other hand....what problems will these units pose at end of life? we already know the problems involved with the standard compound doped silicon units. will these be that much different?
Technologies must account for the entire 'circle'🙌
Really interesting, Poly crystalline & Mono crystalline panels are commonly available btw. The bifacial being interesting for some applications. It will be really great if MicroLink can work with larger panel manufacturers globally to increase production of triple junction panels & get prices near mono prices in the shorter term. Hopefully in a few years seeing the quantum well or other 3D fab structures being applied to mass production.
As older Solar Arrays new replacing👍
I am always a fan of progress even if its comes incrementally... Because even when you think nothing happens it only takes one major development and boom... A new playing field.... Which is probably what's going to happen with at least ONE of these PV alternative types... It will either be fundamentally cheaper to make (e-ink panels) or really durable or really efficient... Maybe a product will develop in that sweet spot but I have a feeling we're already there... We just need WAY more panels! Aka it's a quantity game to net zero rather than a tech one...
Nice to see the Aptera vehicle used as an example of a self charging car. I have one on order!
So instead of composting, you use a device that uses lots of energy to faster dehydrate your food scraps. Great use of the additional energy provided by those more efficient solar cells.
How does that safe energy exactly?
Another example on where it could be already in demand, boating. People short on space but want extra juice to run electronics without running ice generators/run the engine. Can't install too many panels anyway, so extra cost won't be as dramatic as solar roof.
Always give us solar updates ❤️❤️
More to come! Thanks for watching.
Thank you for the video
Sounds really great and can't wait to see it
Creative video, thanks for sharing it :)
Yes, I'm excited for this solar tech. I'll need it in a few years for my Aptera replacement panels and my future solar yacht. Ten times per watt is crazy...but if it drops to 5 times I'm buying.
I may have missed something but from what he said (and if you could buy them) it's already down to around 3-4 times. He quoted $14-18K for a current system and a figure of $60K for this system. I didn't get why he then jumped to talking about a 10 x multiple.
@@anonymity6504 You can safely ignore any talk about price. It's all ridiculous guessing. You can buy nominally 30 to 34% cells right now for many, many tens of dollars (if not about $100) per rated watt from Azur Space, Spectrolab-Boeing, Sol-Aero and others. All of these kinds of cells have and will always be really expensive because of what it takes to make them.
$3,600AUD or $2,500USD for 6.6kw rooftop solar PV system installed in Sydney Australia. Some Government 'subsidies'.
Your USA is crazy as we only work on real costs.
The government realised it is cheaper to help rooftop solar and not build more fossil fueled power plants.
Oh, we must 1) expand research and develop these materials, quantum wellsbudplar panel, and 2) bring to every rooftop what we have now, readily upgradable to future development
sign me up!
In 2019, the world record for solar cell efficiency at 47.1% was achieved by using multi-junction concentrator solar cells, developed at National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado, USA.
The paper, “Six-junction III-V solar cells with 47.1% conversion efficiency under 143 suns concentration,” appears in the journal Nature Energy.
143 suns. Unrealistic.
When tuned to the global spectrum, a variation of this structure achieves a 1-Sun global efficiency of 39.2%.
I need these on my van, where can they be purchased? Didn't see any links in description. Thank you
In 2000, I was installing fairly large Thin-Film, Triple-Junction ground-mount systems. The panels were 108-Watt panels by Uni-Solar. That was 22 years ago. This was in San Diego County, CA. People stopped buying systems because the crooks running CA reduced the grant$. I don't know what became of Uni-Solar, nor do I care ... I think they became 'US Ovonics' or some stupid name like that ... As I said, I don't much care. My point is ... Triple-Junction PV hasn't advanced as much as it could have. Thin-Film, Triple-Junction PV is made using a Vapor-Deposition process as opposed to using "BULK- Silicon" mono crystaline and amorphous silicon materials. A boule of silicon crystal is expensive to grow. No real progress has been made. It's all about keeping the "GRANT Re$earch Money" flowing into the Ivory Tower$ ... no REAL progress ... Does "Fusion Energy" ring a bell? It's been ONLY 50 years away ... for the last 50 years .. same story.
"Crooks reduced the grants"?
I think "crooks fixed themselves grants".
Give us back our money you bas*ards.
It may take another 50 years to get fusion working; if it succeeds!
I hope multijunction cells will one day be cheap to manufacture, but don't know if it will ever happen.
Great video!
The bigger question is when will businesses/corporations stop gouging consumers for everything
@@robdegroot3329 nonsense. Price gouging only works if there is a monopoly AND the good is desperately needed (e.g. food, medicine, etc). Otherwise, in a free market, the customer gets the best price due to competition.
@@robdegroot3329 Try running a business, calculating your costs (including employee pay, your own pay, and company savings), and deciding how to price your product. Your naive opinion will change very quickly.
The comment above mine summarizes the real gouging problem very well.
I've wondered what happened to Rose Labs with their 42% efficiency solar cells. Nearly full visible light spectrum Indium gallium cells with multiple layers tuned to different bands of light.
A solar panel only vehicle can cover a 20 km per day usage on its own, the breakthrough might help it develop a 40 km per day. A regular city commute bay car. No charge. In summer this feature may become regular in the UK, let alone sunny places like Spain.
i always learn something here -thankx
🙏
I feel that instead of energy efficiency, we should chase cost efficiency.. and then focus on improving the energy efficiency...
What does the manufacturing process’s environmental impact, as compared to currently used processes?
@Yin Wang Do you perhaps know if the manufacturing capability scales the same as current tech?
I mean, if you have two suns, you also have to have a greater distance, that your planet is not a oven. So you will also not get as much energy per sun. But it´s a interesting question if it would be still better with two suns but greater distance.
Dude....what?
Quite probably, if the average watt/m² per day were the same as our one sun, then having two suns would mean in therory more daylight hours, meaning lower requirements for storage needs.
But seeing as your orbiting two suns some days one sun would be in front of the other and your daily energy would incoming energy budget would not only be lower, but your back to effectivly only one sun for daylight hours. So you plan to use less energy on those days or you build in excess energy storage for those few days.
@@user-dr2pg8fk2i The video referenced Tatooine, a fictional planet in Starwars that orbits two suns.
Love the Tatuine reference!
Once they hit 50% efficiency+ and at a reasonable cost i can see most commercial buildings lining their roofs with them, which will also help bring down cost for residential too.
Why commercial buildings? There is really no excuse now for anybody to pay a power bill, solar is dirt cheap now, 35¢ a watt already. Affordable for anyone, the homeless camps have electricity without a power bill now.
IF
@@gregpeterman1102 LOL 35c per watt? No-one can afford that.
@@jhoughjr1 35 cent per kWh, in India is 5 cent per kwh
@@mohammadshaqibsiddique9291 thats pretty cheap juice.
Enabling more capable satellites has a direct impact on the average Joe: more accurate weather forecasts, increased crop yields for farmers, more bandwidth for Internet etc...
Two bit, I Just purchased 41 Enphase Solar panels. We have had them up and running for 2 months and are hopeful for any savings the future may bring us. To protect our investment and to optimize their production how may we clean the panels. Can you help us with directions or post a video of the process that would be awesome. Thank you very much in advance and keep up the solid content.
3 rooftop installers and an electrician and their vehicles and the parts.
One day Installed.
$18,000 USD is ridiculous.
Here in Brazil (Rondonia) due to rainforest being destroyed; there is much less rain: Hence much of the hydroelectric power is not working: down from 66% to 41% huge drop! Prices have soared: So many people are switching to solar. (I did so years ago):
The other thing people forget, is that the rain is now falling in Sao Paulo and Rio areas, causing floods: This 'WARM' rain then drains into S. Atlantic and joins the Gulf Stream: Which leads to hurricanes, Tornados etc. from Caribbean along USA East coast from Florida to New York: Then the same storms continue North to the South coasts of Ireland and UK.
Love the vintage Basic program at 8:08 . My first computer language on my trusty Apple ][
Back in Alaska with my latest revelation in reference to my solar panels which I did myself and I moved them around depending on this season as the sun rises and sets in the North in June rarely leaving the horizon deep South in December, as I struggle to figure out exactly where the best place to put them for every day of the week and year. Laying on the slanted roof the angle is wrong and the snow blocks my electrons. And then there's the local drama which I'll skip. My house points South in the diamond so I have Morningside and afternoon side on the walls. Currently the sun is nearing The horizon though summer time the sun rises high in the sky as it circles around. I hung my panels on the wall but they have to tip to get the best angle pointing towards the Sun. The snow came, and one set of panels of three different sets had a negative angle slightly and not a single snowflake stuck. So I have moved all of my panels that I can to the slightly negative angle did I don't even have to take a broom to brush it off. Even the slightly negative angle is pointing more directly at the Sun then it would have been on the roof under the snow I have to shovel and fall off the roof breaking panels. Fortunately for most people on the planet the sun doesn't rise and set in the North as it does in the polar regions here in Alaska. I've hung my panels using 2-in poles 20 ft long and about 6 inches to a foot away from the wall so that I can adjust the tilt angle of the Sun winter or summer. The panels that are flat against the wall and I can't put at a negative angle still collect snow, the kind of falls off easily. But the solar panels that are just slightly negative over vertical were clear of any snow during our recent snow storms. FYI. I like it and that's why I shared my positive story with you.
Excited by it. Wish it was ready, oh well.
great scientific advancements take time, but like you I get super excited. Knowing the smartest minds on earth are working on theses sorts of problems and not at oil companies, brings me great joy
8:47 that’s the top view of an Aptera.
I have 2 on preorder.
I see an inversion in the future for the utility companies. Rather than the public having backup power sources for times when the grid goes down, we will use the grid as a backup for our own and local power production.
Use them in conjunction with tracking systems, mirror reflectors and super capacitors.
Yes, we need more!!!!
Similar to the satellite use case, high-efficiency solar cells could be very useful for supplementing power on e-planes as that tech develops and becomes more available.
By adding more weight to a plane that require power in the power in the 10s of kw range and up? Let alone commercial aircraft
@@AFlyingCookieLOL Yes eventually. We're looking far ahead here.
That's the ticket dear brother. Being above the clouds gives a great energetic potential. Creative minds are always working on solutions. 😊🌎✨
intriguing economics of scale. the ad about composting plastic is timely considering how much waste is in the oceans already
great content thanks
I am excited, two things stick out. One there is a market for them and two, there is existing infrastructure when the roi comes down and existing solar panel become available for replacement.
Imagine an existing installation and instead of waiting the full 25 years, they replace the panels early and double the output. That might be a roi easy to sell to the board.
This info is good. No time to jump in just yet but this all sounds promising when the world is moving to electrification thanks rick!!😳
Real exciting stuff. A breakthrough had to come with all the recent investment.
Very good improvement. What is the cost compared to others and how long will they last? My favorite is Sunpower at 22% efficient and longest power output warranty of 20 years at 90%. That is hard to beat.
I think he said it’s not in production yet and therefore price comparisons not available
i use Canadian solar..
another way to bring down the prices is to manufacture and stockpile in giant warehouses but make them from recyclable stuff so if they fail they can recycle the materials and recover the costs.
it is like if the soda can was made in bulk with hopes it would take off but failed then they can melt down the aluminum and make new products recovering some of the costs.
They now have panels which are above 49% efficient, by using multiple layers working at different visible wavelengths.
This video is only talking about what are called "one-sun" or "non-concentrator" solar cells (not "panels") (and they are multi-junction) and the record for these types are as mentioned in the video. I'm betting the cells (again, not "panels") you are talking about are of the CONCENTRATOR variety.
Storing the energy is still the big issue.
absolutely true, I'm going to cover this a lot in the coming weeks
Just an FYI, those of us near the Golden, Colorado lab call it N-Rell, not the individual pronounced letters N-R-E-L.
Great video, check out the Lightspeed Zero solar car which takes plug in power then adds the suns solar freeness. The aim, drive to work, park in the sun and when you go to go home, depending on how far you're commute is, you could go 6mths + without charging! That's based on a 60km round trip whilst living in Portugal! it won't be as effective in cloudier climbs, but for you in SD, it might be a winner
The Delft University solar challenge 'Nuna' series has won the race five times because they used GaAs cells from the space industry. That shows how important this tech is for solar cars.
Your videos are outstanding! One comment on efficiency though...comparing it to that of an internal combustion engine does not make sense IMO. We pay for a full gallon of gas even though we only get about 20% of its energy to do real work. Energy from the sun is free (last time I checked). Therefore, solar panel efficiency is all about watts per unit area.
If you have a large area and not using it all then watts/$ is more important than watts/area.
Depends on what your limiting resource is. Money or space. Off grid sailboats could probably benefit a lot from doubling their solar energy
We need these solar cells made available today. The public can choose whether or not they will pay a little more for greater efficiency. I certainly would, not ten times the price. Maybe close to double would be enough, probably a little less though. I wouldn’t want to feel like I was being short changed.
There is an army of researchers working on energy production and storage technology every day 24hours a day. Unlike past decades there is a real and very large market now and that's what is driving all this activity. That is going to produce a LOT of breakthroughs, some will be a product of a working theory but others will be "happy accidents". We know that happens from time to time.
well said Frank! I totally agree, its clearly the future and the smartest minds on Earth are working on it, which makes me beyond happy. There was a time the great minds were working at chemical and oil companies
@@TwoBitDaVinci I remember in the 1970s everyone fearing the planet would "run out" of oil and trying to predict when that would happen, seems funny now.
ironic that all the houses shown in the video have the panels in the shade at the time their videos were shot
I had seen an article about NREL’s multi -junction stacked solar cell using a lot of GaAs, Indium Gallium Phosphide, and Indium Gallium Arsenide - correct me if I’m wrong on one of those or if I missed one - that looked to be in the 40-50% efficiency range. As you said though, prices for solar arrays like that would be far too great. However, the idea that commercial solar arrays are slowly reaching that point is really amazing
You may have seen 40 to 50% for NREL's CONCENTRATOR cells. The record efficiency here is for NON-concentrator type cells.
@@bobhilder1469 probably. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the article, so you might be correct
working solutions regardless of the cost are stepping stones. A new team could even take the first level technology and apply a different area of expertise to bring home the next great system!
This may never make it to the mass market, but it may inspire the next leap that does make it to the mass market. More expensive, but more efficient panels make sense when you have limited space, like that car roof, but where you have the space, the inexpensive panels win. It's all about application.
cool stuff. I hope to use them on my solar aircraft
Great Solar Panel information that I hope one day becomes standard in homes.
BTW, the Lomi is too expensive and don't believe is a smart use of energy and resources. It uses electricity and needs a bio bag starter plus a charcoal filter. Nothing compares with natural bio composting of matter.
The eternal electric bill is about to go the same way as the land line telephone.
Lomi is just a bullshit: a blender + dehydrator and nothing more.
It doesn't even make sense per se: when you water your lomi-"fertilized" plants you'll rehydrate the ground wastes.
@@gregpeterman1102 Nope. Not with ever increasing demand from the govt forcing TVs.
I like it. If they can figure out how to mass manufacture it will push solar forward.
I don’t like things like perovskite and printed panels that only last a short time unless they can be recycled.
Interesting but we'll wait for economies of scale to reduce price. Roughly 40% is good but is there a theoretical limit below 100% efficiency ?
Does the food composter need to be outside due to the smell of cooking down food ?
More watts for less land/ maintenance could work out to a use for the panels in comercial applications.
A couple of issues not discussed are what are the efficiency losses over time with these new solar cells and how much more difficult would they be to recycle when they reach end of life. These are key factors that may significantly impact economics of course and have to be part of the analysis in the grand scheme.
How does this compare to cells you can now print or even spray on?
a few % gain is nice for progress but impractical as things stand. i thought they were looking into other transition metals and compounds for substrate than silicon
'Pela Lomi' when you type this into YT search, it returned 10 videos about it being a piece of junk or a scam. Then this video next.
You get very different search results from me. The most negative I found was a critique of how it's not nearly as eco friendly as it claims to be.
@@Steamrick Our Pela Lomi Composter Broke! --- Lomi: BUSTED! --- The World's Best Composter?
Just a comment on the nifty Lome composted. My forestry teacher in high school use to say, “This is soil, dirt is what you find under your fingernails” :-)
Ricky it all has to begin somewhere, thx for sharing. Solar was $8+/W years ago and now
Battery technology needs to catch up. Doubling the power in is great but storing that power is way more expensive and wasteful if the pannels are turn off because the reservoir is full.
I can see one issue they are not addressing. As the light passes thru one layer to get to another they are losing an amount of light that can never be recovered to get to those other layers. They should not capture the light from top to bottom but have the light split like a diamond will split the light in many directions, or a mirror which splits the light into 4 directions equally, then 4 layers, north, south, west, east, each of these layers can capture the different wavelengths of light instead of having the top down method which loses light as it passes through the first layer. I believe this is how u can get to above 80%
I'm afraid you don't understand how these kinds of cells work. Here's a simplified explanation. The sunlight coming in is composed, as you know, of many "colors". The top "layer" of the cell captures one "color" and is TRANSPARENT to all the others. The next layer captures another "color" and is TRANSPARENT to all the others. And so on.
Make sense?
Seriously, people just need to have patience and support the technology as it becomes available. I, for example, am older than photovoltaic cells. I remember them being new and soon to come to market when I was in the third grade. NONE of your life-essential toys existed then. Not solar anything, not alkaline batteries, not commercial jetliners, not drones, not seatbelts, car seats or unleaded gasoline, not a TV in every county, not color TV, no FM radio, not satellites, not transistors, cell phones, handheld calculators or even plastic, just to start a 1,000-page list. And among those things not a single one appeared full-blown on the market looking like it does now. Science, and the R&D that follows it, these are all incremental. So a 40% solar panel charging a portable battery pack that can run my RV refrigerator 3 days and more, sounds damn good to a guy who grew up without indoor plumbing or any refrigerator at all.
Like battery tech, there are many trade offs with solar. A higher efficiency cell may have shorter service life, or it’s materials are expensive to source and/or fabricate.
But as with batteries, once those materials are "in the loop" they stay there, even lower (first) life panels are recycled
Great breakthrough and video. This will be a boon for EVs once the technnology matures. I don't think this is as wishful thinking as other "breakthroughs", even though it will be a few years.
I have the same feeling Shane, this isn't so pie in the sky, it'll come down to make it commercially viable
Cheryl Harris I loved your ideas. We need more people helping in your research. Possibly more groups working together. Teams developing materials, another team working on new materials for new types median used for solar screens. You talked about arsnic we have ample arsnic in New Mexico and I have heard we're havin a hard keeping it out of our drinking water.
Most of us are drinking bottled water. The government will give grants and universities should be looking into your water and solar research. Go for it. Its like the big bang.
How to mass produce carefully selected materials in manufacturing the q weld layers....
I’m wondering if price and overheating will be an issue
Every Breakthrough is important
indeed
Are there any commercial deployments in the works? Aptera would be interested.
I'm guessing those quantum wells are like micro elemental fresnel lenses to capture more bands.