Solar panels are basically synonymous with silicon. The material is used in about 95% of the panels in today's market. But silicon solar cells are limited in how much energy they can harness from the sun, and they are still relatively expensive to make.
For many, compounds called perovskites have long held promise as potentially cheaper, lighter, more efficient solar materials. But despite the excitement—and a flurry of startups to commercialize the technology—some experts caution that perovskite-based solar cells could still be nearly a decade away from having a significant commercial impact, if it ever happens.
[...] But despite the hype, there are a couple of key reasons why your next rooftop solar installation probably won't be powered by perovskites. At the top of the list: they're too fragile.
Perovskites are cheaper to make, but not nearly durable as silicon. Whoever can bridge that gap will change the world.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @07:17PM
Making new type of physical stuff is a lot of expense. Making media blitz of magical promises for a pump and dump, is pure profit.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @07:26PM (7 children)
Probably because competing technologies revolutionized the solar industry first:
https://www.sunrun.com/solar-lease/cost-of-solar#:~:text=The%20cost%20of%20solar%20has,a%2062%25%20average%20annual%20decrease.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday May 20 2022, @09:21PM (4 children)
From that link, "Now, the outright cost of a typical home installation ranges from $16,200 to $21,400".
So why did Native Solar quote me $35,000 for a solar installation? Is that Sunrun price wholesale, not retail?
One of the annoying things about pricing a Tesla is that their default is to include the government incentives.
I of course said "no".
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 20 2022, @09:59PM (2 children)
$35K was about what our Sunrun installation was, but we got about 2/3rd's back in tax breaks. Our array was installed in December and we started producing more electricity than we use in mid-March. That comprises all our HVAC (air-source heat pump), on-demand water heater, and our plug-in hybrid mini-van.
Jury's still out on whether we'll be able to bank enough kwh with net metering to see us through next winter, but so far, so good.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday May 21 2022, @12:12AM (1 child)
That much in tax breaks? Hmm, maybe I should reconsider.
What I look at is that my monthly electric bill is around $150. Suppose it is $200 per month. Would take 15 years to pay back a $35k investment. That's a little too long for my comfort. 10 years is about my limit. One bad extrapolation or wrong assumption could really throw the numbers off. Too many factors could render such an investment worthless. Even if I last that long, would the cells? One bad hail storm could destroy the array. Electricity providers could build so much capacity that the price of electricity is driven down, a lot. Some change in the home could greatly reduce electricity usage.
On that last, our homes are still poor at maintaining a comfortable temperature. The reason California and Florida lead the US in using the least energy has nothing to do with greater awareness, it's purely the mild climates. A/C today is twice as efficient as A/C of the 1980s, but that wouldn't matter so much if our homes were greener. Better insulation can do only so much to compensate for terrible design.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday May 21 2022, @04:55PM
Those tax breaks were federal + state. We're in New York, so YMMV.
We figure our break-even is 5-7 years, using the average electricity prices 6 months ago. It might wind up being sooner than that because we're also using it to cover our transportation costs.
A lot has happened since we did those initial ROI calculations. We still use a little natural gas for the dryer and the stove, but it's always under 3 therms; 3 therms is the minimum amount the gas company here will charge you for, and 6 months ago that monthly cost to us was $30. Now it's $47, or nearly a 60% increase. Electric utilities use a lot of natural gas these days because they can spin those plants up and down quickly to handle variable demand, so some of that increase in the price of gas is bound to make its way into the cost of electricity.
The price of regular gas has gone up a lot, too. 6 months ago it was $3/gallon here and now it's $5.
I moved our household to renewables because dependency on fossil fuels represents a huge geopolitical and economic risk. Energy prices spiked crazy high during the Gulf War when I was in college and it made a big impression on me, as did the oil shocks and queuing when I was a kid in the 70's. It's only now while we're sidestepping many of those consequences as a household that it's being driven home to me how localized that risk and opportunity is.
So it might be worth you taking a second look at solar. If hail damages them, well, that's what insurance is for. If you keep a grid tie and have net metering you'll still have power while the damaged panels are replaced.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday May 22 2022, @03:38AM
>So why did Native Solar quote me $35,000 for a solar installation?
I haven't paid attention to costs lately, but I've got a friend in the business, and the big things that increase the costs are
- Did your system include batteries? Batteries will roughly double the cost over an arguably typical purely grid-tied system.
- What size of system were you pricing? If you use electricity for any sort of heating you may have needed a considerably larger than average system. Electric heaters, stoves, water heaters, hot tubs, etc. all draw a HUGE amount of power, dominating pretty much everything else, and will require a much larger solar installation as a result. The price in the link was for a 6kWh system (probably a typo or weird usage- a 6kW system would generate almost 30kWh/day if you get good sun - which is the average US household energy consumption). If you're not sure, what's your average electric bill? An average consumption of 900kWh/month translates to $117/month at the average price of $0.13/kWh (flat fees not included)
- How steep is your roof? A steeper roof is a lot more dangerous to work on, increasing labor costs dramatically. There's also a lot more parts an labor if for more complex installations, such as pitched roofs that don't already face pretty close to south, or free-standing/"sun shade" systems.
- And just in case, since you mention Tesla. You weren't pricing a Tesla solar roof were you? That's a premium-priced roof replacement, expect to pay a LOT more than for a basic system installed over an existing roof.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2022, @04:15PM (1 child)
about cost:
i think a lot of people don't understand how grid-tie solar works.
take a "T".
the bottom is your grid-connection.
the left side is your normal house electric stuff like .. whatever.
so just these two can be simplified to "I".
bottom is grid, top is your house.
with grid-solar, the right side of the "T" is where it goes.
so people now think the left side of the "T" (your house electric stuff") needs the same amount of equivalent solar-"power" on the right of the "T".
THIS IS COMPLETELY WRONG!
example: say, your house is drawing 2200 watts @ 220V/50Hz from the bottom of the "I" (the grid) that makes 2200W / 220V = 10 A or amperes!
if you now connect 300 watts of grid-tie solar to the RIGHT side of the "T", then what happens ...?
yes, correct! you can SUBTRACT 300 watts (right side of "T" from 2200 W on the "left side of "T" and the result will be what you're drawing, or requiring from the grid (the bottom of the "T").
the magic! you are enjoying the consumption of 2200W and got 300W baby-mini-solar, but are PAYING only for 1900W! the electricity meter THINKS you only have equipment powered on to the tune of 1900W!
and no, the baby-mini 300W will not only power stuff included in the 2200W total that are loads equal or smaller then 300W. it will DEDUCT 300W from one MONSTER single 2200W load/appliance (or 10 tv's each at 220W = 2200watt).
no matter watt (t-hehehe) , the right-side of the "T" where the 300 watt solar is, will deduct across the top bar of the "T" from the left side (2200W) no matter the combination of equipment activated that give a total of 2200W.
caveat: the sun has to shine AND the grid (bottom of "T" needs to be ON, that is no blackout!)
/me crosses finger that it's just this simple information that has kept gazillion people from installing baby-mini-grid-tie-solar. or a big proliferic family of babies.
T
.-batteries "should go here" but there's no consensus yet :(
I
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2022, @04:48PM
a-so, what happens if there's no one using electricity? like the left side of the T has dropped to Zer0 but the mini-babysolar is pushing out 300 Watt?
well, then that energy travels out to the grid (thru your now very honestly backwards spinning meter or if governed by fossile profiteering clubbermint not spinning backwards at all), up to the transformer, then on to the 22KV lines to the next bigger substation, thru a transformer again, now up to 110kV, then over vast distances to the location of a fossile destroying powerplant location, where again it goes thru a transformer back down to the voltage of the generator (riiight, generators run at 110kV lol), giving it a push (instead of a pull) and in the process turning the powerplant into a coal, gas or even oil producing factory ...NOT.(**)
well it will give it a push instead of a pull, so the people feeding the fossile destroying monster will have to turn down the amount of fossile fuel they're feeding the monster else it will run away (increase the frequency of the grid, which is "bad") which ofc means somebody, somewhere is a dollar short when buying that 20 year old red wine or that super yacht or for that matter lobbying for non-backwards spinning electricity meters.
mostly, it will leave your house thru the friendly or fascistic electricity meter and search for a electricity consumer, most likely a neighbor on the same transformer running pool pumps or charging his/her tesla or good cat.
mind you, before "it can go to work at the neighbors", it has to move thru "their"(*) electricity meter *wink*
(*) it's not theirs since ownership is really with the people coming to read it meticulously.
(**) is is however possible to turn some valves or whatnot and have the sun magic water up a hill.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @08:12PM
No need to use communist materials like perovskites, when we can continue to use clean American coal.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @08:16PM
Whhhhyyyyy isn't the entire world beating a path to our door for our tightly-controlled patented technologyyyyyy?
Looking over references in https://www.perovskite-info.com/perovskite-solar [perovskite-info.com] ...investment companies have got it all locked up.
It won't be until 2035 that viable Perovskite tech starts being parasite-free.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @08:45PM (16 children)
when i got into solar 8 years back, i naively thought that that would save the world.
now i know it's a lot more then just "solar panels".
for example: how good are the by-pass diodes? how good are the connectors (MC4)?
now it's stuff like, "c-rate", BMS'es and THEIR electronics, etc. etc.
mostly it's what your "friendly, not-couch flying to COP-version-X, dressed in oil-rig-worker-clothing clubbermint" will allow/support.
what will NOT save the planet is forgetting that renewables first and formost should help to build more renewables. for a home solar system this just means that you're building a "energy bunker", hunkering down and hoping that whoever made your stuff will invest the oil-coupons you gave them for your solar stuff will go into finding ways to make the products manufacturing more oil-coupon independent (instead of hookers and blow) which, sorry to say, translates to cheaper solar equipment.
for example: some say that a big-battery e-car requires more fossile input, thus generating co2, to manufacture. that it is never possible to recoup or break even -vs- fossile car.
this might be correct, IF the big-battery car manufacturing, for the foreseeable future, remains dependent on fossile fuels; however, we now a device that can aid in giving birth to new big-battery cars, that is "theoretically" a existing big-battery car could be used to transport components to manufacture the next generation of e-cars. this way, some of the fossile fuel used in the first generation "boot-strap" e-cars is now offset in the second generation of big-battery e-car.
tesla? sexy, you bet! can they move bulky renewable energy equipment? hmmm... so is it just a vanity car?
ofc this will prolly not happen, just like "boot-strap" chinese solar panels imported into europe will not be used to power a eu-solar panel factory or your over-producing solar home installation will not be exporting electricity to power the battery making factory ...
i suppose even a 1$ solarpanel that still required some fossile fuel to exist is still a 1$ wasted?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20 2022, @09:09PM
addenum: i am sorry for convoluted explaination. maybe a picture says more then 1000 words: https://postimg.cc/8JjFJ4D2 [postimg.cc]
imagine for second, that transporter is electrical and is carrying new batteries and solar panels (and/or silicon, lithium, etc etc) to build a new factory. what is the "cost" of this? obviously zer0 oil-coupons are required ...
thus the logic goes, if renewable isn't getting cheaper, oil-coupon wise, then it is requiring more fossil input ...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 20 2022, @10:18PM (5 children)
It makes sense that the first generation of vehicles and machinery will have been built with those that use fossil fuels. It must have been that way when the first fossil fuel machines were constructed using steam power. But if we don't transition our transportation and manufacturing to sustainable energy then we'll never get there.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 21 2022, @01:33PM (4 children)
many years ago, when i first heard about tesla and "gigafactory" i naively thought "finally someone gets it" and a mental picture formed where the roof of the "giga" factory was plastered with solarmodules, injecting their juice into the factory making e-cars and free-charging the batteries. alas ... electricity to run was bought, the giga-roof didn't contribute anything to making the cars cheaper and the dividends (oil-coupons) are laughable ...
tesla is not alone. toyota has "hybrids". they have so-called hybrids and "plug-in hybrids".
whoever allowed this naming abomination of a naming convention to pass should be shot to the moon without a suit.
the "hybrids" have a tiny battery (>1kwh, 5kwh or so) and it cannot be charged from external source. thus every bit of electricity in this battery was obtained by burning gasoline.
the correct label is "ECO".
the only cars that are real "hybrids" are the ones where you can add energy from an ALTERNATE source, that is you can either add gasoline or electricity thus making it a HYBRID.
for toyota ECO models, i recommend to never use the battery (indicated by a green-car-siloute with ECO printed in it) to ACCELERATE. the display on the dashboard has:
at bottom, tiny slice, "CHG" for charge. (when breaking)
next a blue slice with a middle-line. never have the ECO light on (using battery) past the middle of this slice. EVER.
if you need to accelerate faster ALWAYS be sure to use gasoline.
sometimes the battery is "full" and the eco toyota thinks to use electricity to make the milage look good; if this happens just give a quick depress on accel-pedal to send the needle past the blue slice which will engage the gasoline engine again.
if you KNOW that you can keep a constant speed but are most likely to slow down further down the road, you can use the battery.
it is very IMPORTANT to always try to keep the battery full on the ECO toyota models, since this will engage the atkinson cycle.
sounds fancy but it just means that a cyclinder is not filled to its geometrical size, say 1.8liter/4cyclinder = 0.45l on the intake stroke, but less, say 0.4. however after compression and then ignition the atkinson cycle will expand the xplosion to the full 0.45 l/per cyclinder.
this cycle will most likely be activated if the ECO toyota battery is FULL and you are driving at constant speed only ...
for the real toyota hybrids i do not know the best driving style. but it seems a no-brainer to connect the battery to the grid every-time you get home or if you have excess solar energy to connect the (real) hybrid then ...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday May 21 2022, @05:00PM (1 child)
That's contrary to my experience. The Teslas and BMW i3s I have driven leave ICEs in the dust. They permit one of my favorite moments in driving, which is when the driver behind you on the on-ramp tries to merge before you and crowd you onto the shoulder and you tap the accelerator to instantly leap ahead of them and silently shout, "DENIED!"
Also, we have a plug-in hybrid mini-van and when it's in battery mode it accelerates faster because the acceleration curve is linear.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 21 2022, @08:13PM
thx for reply.
my comment was for improving MPG / efficiency (*).
maybe i poo-pooeh a bit too much on "hybrids" (the ECO type). it still think "hybrid" that cannot except energy input from 2 EXTERNAL sources (liquid fossile fuel -or- grid/grid-tie solar electricity) is a misnomer.
maybe a better and less "poor" label then "ECO" would have been "e-co turbo". the "e" being for electric, and "turbo" well ...
"ECO" invokes a feeling of economize and "you can't con for the oil coupons to buy and run a real car" feeling?
from my experience, if the battery (the "turbine") is fully spooled up (battery is FULL!) then pushing on the accel-pedal gives a good kick. the electric motor adds some niffy torque to the "tractor" powerplant (call it what you want, is a tractor engine w/ makeup), tho i suppose the "e-co turbos" will never have as much torque as a pure electric drive.
i dunno why some tractor engine manufacturer in munich keeps insisting that they can compete with pure electric drive trains (especially since there's no tractor fuel well in a 1000 km radius in sight) *shrug*
(*) funny story: where i live, diesel gets subsidized by petrol. so petrol is more expensive (by a lot) via a tax that is used to buy part of a liter of diesel ... for the farmers by the authority that can levy taxes. so it was raining and i needed calories, so i used the ECO car .. sorry e-co turbo car, to go shopping. since i don't really want to help subsidize the clean but rather stinky diesel users, i drive to max my MPG. surely enough a diesel pickup truck tailgates me and if he had "talking front light LEDs (like some new chinese cars have) i am sure they would have flashed "drive faster, help my diesel stay cheap". :)
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday May 22 2022, @07:49PM (1 child)
True. But you still get away with burning less gasoline because of regenerative braking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2022, @12:45AM
hahaha, yes.
if using a pure ice car, the energy you get from burning "gas" is turned into velocity.
according to galileo (and ignoring friction) you would then continue on at constant speed forever.
it is during breaking that the pump station orders more fuel to be sold.
since adding a mechanism that uses stored kinetic energy to suck co2 an water emitted during acceleration back out of the air and turning it back into gasoline is prolly too bulky, converting the kinetic energy into electrcity (and slowing down in the process) into a battery to release again at a later time, is prolly a good idea.
100% real ECOnomic but not a hybrid if the battery can only except kinetic energy source as source.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Saturday May 21 2022, @01:37AM (1 child)
Screw that... I'll take mine WITH hookers and blow, TYVM
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 21 2022, @01:55PM
it shows ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 21 2022, @04:38AM (6 children)
Debunking:
^This is false. Look at the well-published lifecycle costs; whether they are totaled in an accident or driven the same distance or driven to utter failure, side by side a combustion vs electric car, the electric car has a lower environmental cost.
Any number of good analyses confirm this.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Spamalope on Saturday May 21 2022, @07:38AM
Show me electric car/power wall batteries being recycled vs strip mining for new lithium. The 'lower environmental cost' for that seems to involve exporting the strip mining pollution disaster to mostly out of the news of foreign mines and then hand waving.
I think you could make it better, but the ground truth hasn't been that way.
In much the same was as the 20 year life cycle of an electric car could be cost competitive with a gas car, but isn't. It'd cut into profits if they don't charge massive markup on replacement batteries, for example.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 21 2022, @12:09PM (4 children)
thx reply.
there's a TED talk about this. the one that sayZ a horse going 100 miles emits the same amount of co2 as a ...mustang driving 100 miles.
in any case, strategically we should not debate this but rather point to the solution: that a second gen e-car could be even less co2 intensive to produce.
i understand that maybe, and not putting words into anyones mouths, the reality IS that first gen e-cars use more fossile fuel which would obviously lead to anyone profiting from fossile fuels to DENY it vehemently.
that's why, strategically, argue that the first gen e-car might be more fossile intensive but the second gen e-car could be less fossile intensive ... and hope the government bites.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 21 2022, @02:17PM (3 children)
You forgetting something? A V8 Mustang has over 400 horsepower so more like the equivalent of 400 horses
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 21 2022, @08:18PM
well it wasn't me that gave that TED talk ... just parroting what i saw on youtube.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday May 22 2022, @03:54AM (1 child)
Most of that horsepower is completely unused when cruising at constant speed - probably only using 10-20hp then, if you're obeying the speed limit.
Plus the Mustang will finish the trip in well under two hours, while an average horse can only travel around 25 miles per day, so you're talking the total emissions of the horse for 4 days, most of which will just be its basic "staying alive" metabolism.
Of course the horse emits ecological carbon that was removed from the atmosphere to grow the food it eats, so its actual carbon footprint is zero. (At least assuming its feed wasn't farmed with fossil fuels)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2022, @05:13PM
seems grass eating horses have to obey carrot ...err... carnot too :P