From the Crystal Palace at London 1851, the telephone at Philadelphia 1876 to the escalator at Paris 1900, the World Expo has always showcased innovations and cutting-edge technologies of the time. At the ongoing Expo 2025 Osaka, host country Japan is promoting its latest technology at an unlikely spot; the bus terminal outside the main venue:
When visitors arrive at the Yumeshima Transportation Terminal 1, they will see more than 250 panels of ultrathin, lightweight "perovskite" solar cells forming the curved roof of the 250-meter-long terminal. These film-like solar panels, Japan hopes, will be the killer technology that not only grants the country more renewable power and reduces its dependency on China, but also gives it the chance to be the leader in the next generation of solar battery technology.
As reported at ZeroHedge:
Perovskite solar cells, discovered in 2009, are made from layers of chemicals just millimeters thick. Though still in early development, they rival traditional silicon-based panels in efficiency while being 20 times thinner and 10 times lighter, allowing installation on walls, rooftops, and even windows—places unsuitable for heavy panels.
"We believe this technology has the potential to beat the conventional silicon-based solar panels in terms of power generation efficiency," said Futoshi Kamiwaki, president of Sekisui Solarfilm, which developed the panels showcased at the Expo.
Japan, with limited flat land, leads major nations in solar capacity per km2 but is running out of space. Installing perovskite cells on buildings could turn cities into vertical solar farms, helping Tokyo meet its 2040 goal: 29% of power from solar, up from under 10% today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 27 2025, @02:48PM (3 children)
Pay walled, which is the new trend here at SN.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Sunday July 27 2025, @04:00PM
No problems here. Maybe try tor to get a fresh IP?
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Sunday July 27 2025, @04:12PM
It's more like an online trend in that regard. Still you could read the first two paragraphs on the Nikkei one, which was more then enough and the Zerohedge one had no blocking that I can see. Just searching for the headline gives you a bunch of others that more or less just parrot the same as Nikkei.
https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/japan-ultralight-perovskite-solar-panels-expo-2025-clean-energy-125072300825_1.html [business-standard.com]
https://liveindex.org/technology/japan-bets-on-ultrathin-solar-panels-to-promote-clean-energy-growth/ [liveindex.org]
https://www.asianfin.com/news/115190 [asianfin.com]
(Score: 4, Touché) by janrinok on Sunday July 27 2025, @06:23PM
I had no problem downloading it. If you look at the link 'Original Submission' at the bottom of the story you will see the entire text there.
Of course, if you are unable to click links that are in plain view then yes, for you, there will be many sites on the internet that you will never see.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Sunday July 27 2025, @03:10PM
They have an interesting "advantage" which is if you pull up a graph of electricity use in Japan they grew from about nothing in 1920 to about 1 petawatt-hour/year in 1990 and all growth has ceased since then its flat line slightly declining since then (only dropping a few percent at most).
Their nuclear production peaked around 40% and has been mostly replaced by natgas. Japan sure likes to burn natgas.
Not burning natgas for energy has another interesting effect that its a good feedstock for fertilizers and chemistry in general, so you can make more money turning natgas (very indirectly) into rice than you can by simply burning it in a turbine to make KWh. My point being that replacing natgas turbines with solar panels will not decrease the use of petrochemicals, it'll just make industries more money, and food and consumer goods in general will be slightly cheaper, probably. The greenwashing is a bit overoptimistic, all that stuff's going to get pumped out and burned or otherwise released into the environment, just burned somewhat differently.
(Score: 2) by chucky on Sunday July 27 2025, @08:53PM (1 child)
I’m afraid the headline is a bit misleading:
The ‘betting’ to me would be finding an investor and trying luck. Here they are talking about getting money from the state. And if that money doesn’t arrive, nothing will happen.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 28 2025, @12:24PM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday July 28 2025, @01:41AM (5 children)
I keep looking at the price of rooftop solar, running calculations to figure payback periods, and keep concluding it isn't worth it. Too risky. Too many unknowns. Too high an initial cost. Installation costs way higher than the supposed cost per kwh. I read of costs of $1500 per kwh, but then I get quoted prices that are double or more that.
I suppose it's obvious that you cannot trust the calculations that the vendors are only too eager to provide. Some of the less obvious costs I worry about are, what will that do to my property taxes? Pay $3000 per kwh for a 12kwh system, $36000, and see the local government seize upon that $36,000 figure in their valuation of my home, making my property tax go up $500 per year, wiping out much of the savings on electricity I could expect? No thanks! When I brought that up, the vendors assured me that my home valuation would not change. That's easy to say, but is it true? I fear that they lie. Can they show me law to back their claim on that point? No! Will they put language in a contract guaranteeing that if I am charged higher property taxes, they will cover the difference? Again, no.
Another thing to be cautious about is what kind of deal you can get from electricity providers. I hear some of them will try to sucker the homeowner into paying for the electricity from their own solar installation, by routing all the electricity onto the grid and back. The energy company pays the wholesale rate for the electricity from your solar cells, then charges you the retail rate for all the electricity you use. How can you avoid that? Well, one way is to employ batteries. But if you do that, now you have additional expense to buy a bunch of battery capacity, and the additional worry that the batteries will prove high maintenance and short lived. I wonder if a flywheel might be better energy storage than a battery. Still another thing I fear is a hailstorm destroying my solar rooftop installation. Yeah, real easy to promise coverage in such an event, quite another to collect should it happen. Roofers are always insisting that your roof has hail damage and must be replaced. Maybe, maybe not. Can't trust them to tell the truth, and then there are always borderline cases that are difficult to call.
Politics is another worry. You can never tell if the government is going to screw with the numbers. The government takes a turn towards a more conservative, green hating stance, and suddenly your costs go up. For example, about 3 years ago, the state slapped electric cars only with an additional $200 annual renewal fee, supposedly to compensate for them not paying any gas tax that is used to pay for the highway system. Gas cars get charged $50, electric cars suddenly had to pay $250. That totally wrecked the already flimsy case I had for keeping the electric car I had gotten. Its batteries were old and greatly reduced in capacity, just 20 miles at best on a full charge. Pay $250 annually for that? I got rid of it.
And now, on politics there's another admittedly low probability possibility that used to be unthinkable. What if the US goes full fascist? Then that rooftop solar could mark me as too liberal, and get me targeted for death. I think that improbable, and in any case there are all kinds of other things about me that would get me on death lists, like that I dared to put Democratic signs in my yard during election season. A more likely scenario is that for my own safety I am forced to flee my home, maybe moving to a blue area, or maybe leaving the US entirely, abandoning all my possessions, like some of the citizens of late 1930s Germany. Liquid assets can be moved out, provided you get sufficient warning. but rooftop solar would of course have to be among the abandoned possessions.
One of the biggest issues with buying an electric car is that vendors all use range figures that assume optimal conditions, like that you won't drive faster than 100 kph, you won't use the A/C, and you will run the charge nearly out, like under 1% before recharging, and recharge all the way to 100%. The real figures on all those work out to a range on a charge of roughly half the distance they like to claim. I mean, yeah, there's much lying by omission in many industries (ink jet printers, anyone?), and the field of marketing has a bad odor. But I do believe green energy is a bit below average on the level of honesty they practice. Not as bad as used car sellers, but, even allowing for the newness of the market that makes estimates more difficult, they push the rosy picture too hard for my comfort.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 28 2025, @03:00AM
Nice post. I've been thinking along similar lines (but with less detail). My roof isn't oriented very well for solar, and parts are shaded by big trees. However, tfa points to even lower prices for panels, so maybe roof top solar will make more sense in a few years if this new type of panel goes into large production.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Monday July 28 2025, @07:29AM (3 children)
I know. For example, let's say you have 3000 sq. ft. roof and shingles are costing $40/33 sq.ft. So, need like a hundred bundles like that. Which means, the shingling the roof should cost $4000+labour. But now these assholes are trying to charge me $20,000 or $30,000 or even more? That's like 3-5 times the cost, even if they use double priced shingles. Total rip off!
Oh wait, solar panels? Right... seems to be in same ballpark of quotes, no?
Around here, I get 16kW of panels for €1850.That's a whole pallet load. Delivery is €115. That's €112/kWe. Need to add inverter and everything else on top. But that's the *capital* price if you are not paying your tariffs. At 10% production rate per year (you know, rain and night and stuff), that's 876kW@€0.30/kWh = €260/year > €112. Not considering that you change these when you change your roof ....
From economic standpoint, the panels are a no-brainer to install. The debate is like complaining it's too expensive to install insulation and then bitching it costs $5000/year to heat and cool the place. Of course, maybe you have free electricity... or taxes/tariffs to pay.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by stormreaver on Monday July 28 2025, @10:49AM (2 children)
Not where I live in the U.S. Here, getting 8KW of generating capacity put onto my 2300 square-foot house runs about $45K (probably more now that Trump is cancelling rebates and incentives). Replacing my roof with 30-year, fire-resistant tiles costs $13.8K.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Monday July 28 2025, @03:53PM (1 child)
Are you sure there isn't a zero missing after the 8? Including batteries? 10kWh storage start at 1200€, 8kWp panel is around the same, so cheapest bidder parts-wise, you're at 21600€ for 80kWp AND 80kWh storage.
Or do local regulations demand that the installation is done by doctors, dentists, and lawyers only?
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Monday July 28 2025, @08:55PM
I wish. I recently called a few electricians in my city, and asked a hypothetical: If I had a solar system completely installed, including having the wiring run to the breaker box but not connected, and the only thing you had to do was connect the wires to the house, how much would it cost?
The average answer was $20K! Solar installs here are astronomical.