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posted by martyb on Tuesday August 15 2017, @11:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the going-green-literally dept.

Science Daily has an article on a new way to promote the use of solar energy, by developing new colors using silicon nanopatterns. Those solar panels then may be more easily used to beautify (or at least blend into) areas. Although, there is an efficiency hit, there is also potential to use this to increase overall efficiency through layering dedicated spectrum absorbing layers.

Solar panels have tremendous potential to provide affordable renewable energy, but many people see traditional black and blue panels as an eyesore. Architects, homeowners and city planners may be more open to the technology if they could install green panels that melt into the landscape, red panels on rooftops and white ones camouflaged as walls.

A new study published this week in Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing, brings us one step closer to a future of colorful, efficient solar panels. Researchers have developed a method for imprinting existing solar panels with silicon nanopatterns that scatter green light back toward an observer. The panels have a green appearance from most angles yet only show about a 10 percent power reduction due to the loss of absorbed green light.

[...] Neder and colleagues created their efficient, green solar panels through soft-imprint lithography, which works somewhat like an optical rubber stamp to imprint a dense array of silicon nanocylinders onto the cell surfaces. Each nanocylinder is about 100 nanometers wide and exhibits an electromagnetic resonance that scatters a particular wavelength of light. The geometry of the nanocylinder determines which wavelength it scatters and can be fine-tuned to change the color of the solar cell. The imprint reduces the solar panel's efficiency by about 2 percent.

"In principle, this technique is easily scalable for fabrication technology," said Albert Polman, a scientific group leader at AMOLF and senior author on the paper. "You can use a rubber stamp the size of a solar panel that in one step, can print the whole panel full of these little, exactly defined nanoparticles."

[...] The nanopatterns also could be useful in making tandem solar cells, which stack several layers, each designed to absorb certain parts of the spectrum, to achieve efficiencies of greater than 30 percent.


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:12AM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:12AM (#554503) Journal

    To an engineer, a ten percent loss would be unacceptable. To marketing droids, it means nothing. As long as they have an angle with which to sell stuff, they are happy. To end users, a loss of efficiency means nothing. They see "ooohhh, PRETTY!" So, solar panels become the new bling.

    I've never thought about it, really, but how durable are solar panels? They talk about white walls, but how long will the white walls remain shiny and bright? And, how long will the photoreceptors continue to make electricity? If the panels last 100 years in real life usage, then this is all great. If they begin losing efficiency in the first five years, and continue losing over the next 20 years, then maybe they aren't such a good idea. If their lifetime is less than 20 years, then they pretty much suck.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:17AM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:17AM (#554514) Journal

    I've never thought about it, really, but how durable are solar panels?

    20 years is a required (regulated) manufacturers warranty in most of the places. Most of the PV panels now have at least 25 years long life-cycle.

    Lifespan and degradation rates [engineering.com] - less than 1% for pre-2000 models. For panels post-2000, on average (over all types of technologies) being 0.4%/year - some tech being much less prone to degradation.

    Just make sure to dust them from time to time, y-2-y dirt accumulation will drive the efficiency more than the rate of cell degradation. Use water jet.

    To an engineer, a ten percent loss would be unacceptable... To end users, a loss of efficiency means nothing.

    :) Ad gutum guesses, but sold as hard facts, eh?
    Asking the oracle: what about users who are engineers (perhaps in unrelated fields)?

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    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:48AM

      by frojack (1554) on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:48AM (#555068) Journal

      Asking the oracle: what about users who are engineers (perhaps in unrelated fields)?

      What about the users who are high-school graduates. There isn't all that much math involved, and most of them can read.

      Do they want to shell out more money for a pretty panel and STILL have to pay power bills on top of that, or buy the boring one and seldom or perhaps never pay an electric bill again?

      The dropouts will just paint them any color they want.

      It doesn't take an engineer.

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