brahmanaidu
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Aug 12, 2024 3:45 PM
brahmanaidu
56479
1518
65
c4binfever
a great scientific discovery, i cant wait to never hear about it again
JohnSmithterms
yeah it generates like 10% of what a typical solar cell can as it only captures a fraction of the light spectrum. Still cool though for some applications and hopefully it will get improved on.
CyanideBreathMint
Thought this was a this time last decade bot
theskepticinme
Can’t be very efficient at converting light to electricity if the light goes through
traumadonna
Is no one going to address “thay”?
Hemelsblauw
Let's just read this newer article on solar inventions. https://www.duurzaam-ondernemen.nl/doorbraak-met-zonnecel-op-folie-kan-behoefte-aan-zonneparken-verminderen/
cjandstuff
I could swear I've been hearing about this since the 90's.
wingweaver415
I always question these factoids framed like this as they always seem to not be what they appear.
quietwalker
Now they just have to make it efficient, cheap, reliable, durable and can be produced easily at scale.
MagicOrpheus310
Yep... and we never heard from him again... I fucken wonder why...??
temet1nosce
Prolly bought patent and shelved
Targe0
Nope, they tried to make it work, but the tech just isn't efficient enough to be useful. They don't generate a useful amount of energy and because of that are more polluting to make than normal glass. Because they never offset enough emissions to make up for their production emissions. So the tech didn't go anywhere.
prettydumb
theres literally no chance any solar panel can power a real building at the efficiency they operate at per surface area, otherwise the fact this is transparent would literally be nothing compared to the world saving invention
BigAdam
Making power isn't the problem, its storing the bastard.
Disastermaster101
Hydro companies aren't gonna like this guy watch out buddy
dripstone
they are looking to use this technology in Russia. Instead of falling out of window which requires it to be open, one just needs to touch it to get electrocuted. Much more efficient.
ensensu
Ah yes, electric windows.
mity0k23
Ready to never hear about this again.
Targe0
It's old, they never went anywhere because they don't produce a useful amount of power. So to actually make them all would be more polluting than normal glass. Because they make such little amounts of power that they never really break even on their carbon footprint to produce.
beemarr
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMhdpWMDp04
Was from nearly a decade ago.
Khaelix101
Potentially.
Mithi
Is today_a_decade_ago a new reposting bot?
Skizmo
2014 has called: https://www.greenlancer.com/post/transparent-solar-panels
SpotlightStealer
They're probably far worse for a building's insulation, paired with the decrease in efficiency from letting through light you could be capturing, I bet in a lot of places these wouldn't really get you much.
ThisGostakIsHereForTheDoshes
Yeah, you kind of want the solar panel to absorb all the light.
visualsculptor
TheMoonBnuuy
AI generated images are simultaneously high effort and somehow still shit
KamikazeGerbil101
Keep hearing all these great improvements to solar, but they never show up on the market. Why ?
freshthrowaway1138
Because they don't work as described. Such as the "amazing" peroskivitz (sp?) tech that gives amazing efficiency bonuses but degrades in sunlight.
ThisGostakIsHereForTheDoshes
Standardized mass produced products have a price advantage that is hard to beat with a fancier product. And production is currently scaling like mad as China is flooding the market. Panel prices have about halved over the last year to now. There is not much incentive to use "better" panels when you can just use more for less money. It's not like all the rooftops are full already.
hackller
hmmmmm! is it april already?
hackller
just looked them up. 10% efficency?
TheMoonBnuuy
It's to be expected given conventional solar cells are just a little more than twice that. You can't let light pass through and not lose efficiency over conventional.
FranticRed
In 2014.
Latexiom
So like two years ago, still fairly fresh.
Targe0
They aren't new, they have existed awhile. Why do we not see them in wider use? Because they are terrible, they hardly work. And they aren't worth making.
ProgeriaProstitutes
Maybe we don't see them because they're transparent?
Targe0
That was a very low powered joke.
KilroyLichking
10 year old invention at this point https://youtu.be/qMhdpWMDp04?si=ytC38xOgN68RnWG9
baals
Should be incorporated into every new building, what the fuck is wrong with us that get here is a great way to get power without hurting the planet. But fuck no we got people who want to make more money in charge of everything so instead of a nice clean utopia that we could have we are choking on our own exhaust and making sure we get millions and millions of years worth of oil up out of the ground as fast as possible to make as much money as possible.
TZO2k15
Invention schmevention, I want to see practical applications, though we all know why there isn't much of that going on...
*Scowls at gQp/corpos
tylerlarson
It turns out that finding places to put your solar panels wasn't the main problem after all. And making your solar panels dramatically less efficient, comically fragile, and nearly impossible to hook up just so that you can put them on your windows isn't the selling point we thought it to be.
Who would have guessed that making solar panels cheap, efficient, and durable was what people wanted instead. Huh.
Rhythmaster
Photovoltaics are amazing and super cheap now, they have become so cheap that they made a lot of other solar tech not obsolete but just not worth it to invest in anymore. There was this super cool facility with mirrors all around it that focused the sun on a tower full of molten salt, super interesting design and technology but the drawbacks compared with a modern simple solar panel farm ended up scuttling the project.
billymaditsdone
While we're here...Did you hear about the latest cure for male baldness?
KilroyLichking
its a hair system...
WoopDeFrickenDoo
OH BOY any year now!!!11
MapleSyrupMafia
By the time my hairs are all gone, it will be out, right?
Ktet709
I was going to say my dad sells glass for commercial buildings and they have had this out for a while now. He's sold it a few times for building that are mostly windows on all sides.
djangojazz
This and Solar Roadways and Liquid Thorium Salt Reactor. All things from over ten years ago. Thought of in the US, probably will be done somewhere else because fuck good science that helps everyone. Hard to make money off of that.
nikkithe8th
I'm so excited to have never heard about it again!
RayneOfSalt
Older than that. I remember seeing transparent solar panels on a tv show in the 80s called "Beyond 2000".
SerialChickenLover
Did he happen to commit suicide by shooting himself twice in the back of the head with his hands tied behind his back?
KilroyLichking
no the tech did not catch on because it is wildly inefficient, and retrofitting existing skyscrapers is cost prohibitive
SilentHowling
Meaning they were able to give him a firm enough "No" to stop further development. Same as the electric car. People tried it since the late 1800s and everytime it was sabotaged, instead of invested in. Energy companies have a vested interest in preventing people from being able to generate a large amount of power from the home itself.
Thornaxe
Not everything is a conspiracy. A lot of inventions are garbage for a long time until a bunch of other tech evolves around them and makes them viable. In 50 years we might develop some manufacturing tech that makes these panels viable. Or maybe not.
SilentHowling
Of course not all tech is viable. But check the wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_solar_cells researched for a long time & well understood. solar doesn't require any new science just new techniques in figuring out which materials work best & how to put them together. As for the subject of this post. Look at the last entry from 2022- They made semi-transparent cells large as windows with 79% opacity. Nearly there. Also 1/2
InfocalypseRising
Ha. I was all set to be like "great, cant wait to never hear about it again" but we already never heard about it again
Akurei00
Almost never. We heard about it again today.
WoopDeFrickenDoo
but before now I had already never never heard of it, so it follows that I previously had heard of it, despite never having heard of it before now.
StarshipSuperTrooper
There's stuff happening with it: https://www.greenlancer.com/post/transparent-solar-panels ... The problem with these breakthrough inventions are that they got the proof of concept to work and try to drum up support for R&D. But the proof of concept is pretty damn far from having a working, cost effective, final product.
Lutki
Also a lot of them tend to be scams, like solar roadways
Atomic2
My god I had such arguments with people about that. People with 0 engineering background who just blindly believed a youtube promo video.
StarshipSuperTrooper
I have no engineering experience but my comment "Driving on electronics seems prohibitively expensive" downvoted on the regular
Rhythmaster
What I'd like to see more of is those solar roofed bicycle corridors, and also the solar panels over top of canals in drought prone areas. Shading the area underneath the canal reduces water evaporation meaning more of it gets to the people who need it. I've no idea if these ideas are really workable or not but they seem like they would be? Solar roadway that cars drive on top of is just ridiculous on its face, I can't believe anyone would think that was a good idea...
Lutki
So solar efficiency drops off pretty fast the further from the equator you get and, in the US at least, most southern states didn't really have a population boom until the industrial revolution so they tended to spread out instead of up, making commuting without a car a challenge. Not to mention the southern us gets hit by tropical storms and hurricanes every year or two, so solar being damaged yearly makes the ROI not make sense. On the East Coast cities were built prior to the industrial 1/
ThisGostakIsHereForTheDoshes
If these structures do not exist currently, than I am pretty pessimistic solar panels will make them suddenly viable. I think these ideas have some good elements: solar panels have actually become cheap, they are decently tough because they need to resist hail. But I feel like mounting them on elevated frames is still too manpower intensive. We will probably soon see a wider variety of prebuilt mounting solutions that are manufactured at scale, and then these things might have a better chance.
TheGodEmperorOfChaos
I imagine Incorporating Solar panels into building windows is much more of a hassle than most think.
DrWhy9
or you know roofs, which are cheaper, have sun for longer in the day and require less expensive tech. Sounds nice but is frankly useless
Phant0m5
Have you just never seen the giant glass skyscrapers that seem to litter every major city's downtown? They have enormous sun facing sides for their (comparatively) tiny roofs, and turning those into power collectors - even inefficient ones - could offset a lot of their power use with no additional space used.
DrWhy9
again sounds nice how much of them are in direct sunlight long enough for an amount that would produce enough to recuperate the cost of production, repair and replacement. Imagine calculating that the cost of throwing them on the south side of your building would recuperate over 5 years and then someone builds another big building and fucks you for 50% of sun time.
jt42
I think the angle of sunlight makes it not so great.
SilentHowling
Imagine if every house was built with solar collectors to light the inside during the day and every surface connected to provide power with battery system in the basement to store that energy. If every house was doing it, it'd be cheap to get parts and over time installers and manufacturers would figure out the best way to do it. Know what's in the way of this? Energy companies.
EdmundandHarald365
Not every house has a basement. Not every house can have a basement. People might want to use surfaces inside their house. It's not really practical to have giant reflective surfaces on the walls of your house. Lots of people live in flats as well.
Your heart is in the right place. You just need to think your ideas through quite a lot more.
Badprenup
I can imagine lots of things because as John Lennon said, it's easy if I try. However you, like him, need to understand that simply imagining the end result doesn't solve the myriad of issues that prevent you from getting from A to Z.
Just getting the parts used to be semi-standardized across the industry taking different regional needs into account is a process of several thousand different steps.
SilentHowling
Don't let perfect the enemy of good. We could start solving those problem right now or better 20 years ago. Imagining that several 1000 steps are between now and the goal is no reason not to start.
gypsyspot
well, and infrastructure/grid storage
KilroyLichking
i don't the window bit its that hard, all the PV are along the edges of the frame, the glass just serves to redirect UV and IR light to the collectors. The hard bit is retrofiting existing structures to use it. It would be totaly fine if this tech was designed into the structure from the outset.
TheGodEmperorOfChaos
I was thinking more in the line of setting up additional wiring for everything, each window would need to be connected to a controller and battery, followed by an inverter and a meter before connecting it to the house grid. Not to mention you would need to follow local regulations. The windows themselves as you said would be the easiest part.
MisterLemons
"OOPS lol, there's a short in floor 25 somewhere so 26-90 are inoperable"
Badprenup
Yeah there's lots of reasons specifically why we set up panels the way we do that aren't just "because that's the only way it can be done right now" (which is objectively false). It's because big solar panels that get the most sun exposure positioned in ways that minimize the electrical work to get the power into the grid are the cheapest and most efficient ways of doing it AND works best without changing a shitload about how we build.
Dragondraikk
I'm just sitting here thinking of the inevitable maintenance. How easy is it to replace them after End of Life?
visualsculptor
VodkaReindeer
The problem with solar is that we're not buying enough from China even though it's so cheap
huffnpuff72
Only producing in daylight is partly a problem because we've built our electricity grid and consumption to incentivise using power overnight 'off peak'.
0570
That's why big energy only gives you between €0,03-€0,06 per KwH supplied to the grid, while we gotta pay €0,20 per KwH taken from the grid.
VodkaReindeer
"I can't believe I can't get cheap solar energy at night" -0570
0570
Lay off the vodka for a while, it'll be better for you
pareidoliaperson
Their bootlickers will love this information together with the other information that solar panel energy is volatile.
Yellowchopsticks
AleineDog
The fact that we even use a concept of “negative value” instead of just “free power” is absolutely excruciating
jesuisgur
If someone invented a replicator that could manufacture anything out of thin air, it would be banned as anti-competitive or something.
PlasmaGebardi
In a grid this is a problem since the power has to go somewhere and the pricing reflects that. If there is "too much" power supplied to the grid, it's not just free, the grid will collapse and no one will have power.
ElbowDeepInAPoliceState
It's negative because it can result in an unbalanced
ElbowDeepInAPoliceState
Load, which could do things like cause generators to explode if it's unbalanced enough. And the reason why they can't just shut off other power plants is because base load stations are built to always be running, so shutting them down and starting them back up is a long and expensive process. Thus, wholesale rates go negative because it's cheaper to pay those clients to use electricity than it is to shut off stations
xXCarpeNoctumXx
well...the power companies through their own stupidity are forced to buy power from you when you're hooked up to their grid....hence why they make the burden of entry so high....they in the business of making money instead of wanting a more stable power grid to bolster your service....
PanNonOpticon
Um, negative price is a real problem. That means whomever invested to the solar doesn't get a return for his/her investment. And if there is no return nobody will invest more.
Kinkyboinick
the real problem is that negative price doesn't offset the positive price gouging at the consumer level
the way to fix this is making regulations and taxes for corporations abusing unclean energy and having that fund cleaner energy....what a concept
palmmute
Yeah. And that's a capitalist problem, hence the point being made.
halfabubbleoff
How much did you spend on the solar panels on your home or community solar garden?
GOAE
They did get a return. Less carcinogens and particulates in the air. Half the problem is we have too many idiots focused only on money.
GOAE
But if you insist on caring about money, climate change has a HUGE cost to tax payers and business owners. Solar makes less climate change.
GOAE
We pay enormous amounts of money for the health issues, crop issues, drought issues, etc.
Dragondraikk
See, the problem is that that is an issue for future generations to suffer, not the 60 yr old billionaires.
PanNonOpticon
So, you have invested into solar energy just for the benefit of clean air?
DangerBaer
"just"
Spoofbot
Is that not a good reason?
BreakerSwitch
These assholes are going to trick us into making the world a better place. FOR NO REASON
RedCamaro
"A transparent solar cell is less efficient (around 10% efficient) than conventional photovoltaic solar cells (up to 25% efficient), which means that they can capture and convert less energy compared to conventional solar panels." -ESE Solar.uk. Opinion: Would make sense to MAXIMIZE conventional photovoltaics before considering transparent solar cells, at current technological development.
redsmerf
So? It's STILL making electricity.
psugab
It's not just a tech thing, but also a physics thing if I remember correctly. So we will never hit 95% converted energy with solar.
TheRidg
What happens if you stack them?
AutoFox
I mean, why not both? If both your roof AND your windows are generating power, it's that much more power.
QuartzPoker
That's silly. It's not pie, you can research both at once without detracting from the other.
tibbs3d
Yeah it's not an either or. Put conventional panels on your roof, and replace windows with transparent
whoisyourdaddy
But windows....
Renza0
hear me out - do both. higher efficiency panels wouldnt work as windows, but transparent ones - depending highly upon how theyre made and whats required to make them, plus structural strength etc - would. Even at lower efficiency could be used to passively increase power generation basically any building that currently uses windows, which while it may be less efficient, is a fuckload of surface space. I am curious as to what effect it would have in the context of allowing radiant heat through
Samja192
Counter opinion.. more than one technology can be developed at a time
SimplyWalkedIntoMordorAndBroughtPizza
think of it as an addition. before we had to use roofs etc for the PVs. now we have the option to enhance our windows or transparents surfaces with them to get an additional energy output.
DarthAndy
Or... put some transparent ones on top of the conventional ones. By my maths that's 35% and someone owes me a Nobel prize.
ReaperCDN
These could replace windows or go in between them to generate power. It's just a win, regardless of how inefficient they are. They're infinity times more efficient than your non power producing windows right now.
KonyTornheiser
Even at 10% the volume of replacing every glass window in a city with solar would result in enough power to perpetually power the city itself with very little need for hydro or carbon sourced electricity
delpharseven
At the same time we can be improving windows themselves (higher IR and UV reflectiveness, lower thermal conductivity) and more importantly, how they are installed (airtightness, thermal bridging). Improving windows and photovoltaics separately in parallel is going to pay off more and faster than creating a whole new set of challenges by combining them.
Tarmaccian
One of the efficiency issues with PVs is that the materials only respond to particular wavelengths. Materials that absorb wide swaths of the spectrum appear opaque, and tend to be quite fragile. Different materials only absorb a few frequencies, and appear transparent, but can be more robust…
Now imagine an opaque PV with a transparent PV on top of it. If the net result is that more wavelengths are captured at better rates, that’s how we’ll get higher total efficiency.
MrFancyPanzer
The surface area of windows in a typical office building is probably greater than the surface area you could put normal solar panels on without obstructing the windows.
Acdkatie
But would be great for things like greenhouses.
turbotricycle
Those numbers are a little inaccurate. A 25% efficient solar panel is basically a unicorn. Most are closer to about 15-20% and they lose about 2-3% in the first few months of operation. The best on the market are about 23% max. These numbers are pulled from market watch.
TheWhiteBarry
Also the fact that we only need a tiny amount of surface area to generate all the power we need. Sause: https://www.freeingenergy.com/how-much-solar-would-it-take-to-power-the-u-s/
astrangehop
That's a huge area
TheWhiteBarry
To power the entire united states??
randomhero13
stop using numbers and facts, that doesnt fit the narrative!
HiImLick
Makes sense to do both because yano.. context. Can't use transparent ones as windows dude,
SpotlightStealer
Pair that with the inability to use insulated windows and you list even more energy efficiency as your gains immediately have to offset an energy saver you're getting rid of.
lumberjackman
You know the cool thing is, the whole of humanity doesn't need to focus on just one thing, never mind that being impossible. Besides, the tech is still in the early stages. Consider how long it took conventional solar panels to become commonplace. The first practical silicon solar panel was made in the 50s.
unluckyandbored
Yeah. A transparent cell is obviously going to be worse, because it's letting energy THROUGH rather than absorbing it.
derJake
Where we're going, we won't need panels to c. https://electrek.co/2024/08/09/oxford-scientists-are-generating-solar-power-without-panels/
Wye734
Well the normal fucking glass on I'm using now is 0% so how about we just start off with good and work our way up?
Icouri
Counterpoint (I did a research project on this). Develop in parallel and use where best fit. High rise office buildings have a ton of window space. We had to make a lot of assumptions but it's certainly feasible to offset it's own cost in a short amount of time and then reduce the building's footprint on the grid. And when we were looking at it, it was less than 10% (closer to 5).
hamulusrex
I take it they're more expensive as well? I'd live in a dark ass box to have my whole house covered in regular solar cells.
Ark161
Or…stack them..and supplement standard panels. No need to discard ideas because something isn’t perfect
MerriMod
Hi, I'm a genuinely curious idiot who doesn't understand how any of this stuff works. What would happen if you built normal solar panels and put these transparent ones above them? Would the normal panels not produce as much energy?
ProxyPlayerHD
hmm, maybe they're opaque in some non-visible light frequency so stacking multiple of them wouldn't work, and stacking one over a regular solar panel would reduce the non-visible light reaching the panel, so it would generate less.
ProgeriaProstitutes
I guess the translucent panels only convert non-visible light into energy, which leaves only the visible light for the regular panel to convert. So yes, they would't produce as much.
Dstar99a
I guess stop thinking of it as light as see through and start thinking of it as radiation and penetration of radiation waves. The top panel would dampen the signal coming through it (while absorbing some of the radiation) the first panel below the received the dampening factor of the top layer in terms of input, which would also reduce that panels output. Now I would be curious what effect tinting the glass panel have, potentially allowing the panel to absorb more radiation that the cleat ones.
Dstar99a
Tinting of course is just a metaphor here. You wouldn’t literally tint the glass, but maybe darker the manufacturing process so the glass has a chemical or a substance added to it that would darker the panel or maybe more directly absorb the radiation rather than allowing it to pass through.
SalmonTheWise
Normal panels would produce less energy.
smugg77
I think thats a very fair question which i dont know the answer to
Sotai
The benefit of being transparent is that it can be used as a window. The downside of doing this (and why it probably will remain a useless bit of tech) is that the window then becomes incredibly expensive and unable to be opened, helping to create sick building syndrome conditions.
kaneinencanto
You're not going to replace every window on the whole building... most likely you'd just install these on the south facing sides of the building. Maybe some on the east and west faces, but only on the higher levels probably.
alcamar
Floors 2+ that are nothing but window walls would be the perfect place for something like this
mirrorz
I've never seen a commercial building with windows that open. Office buildings/skyscrapers tend to be entire walls of glass around here.
delpharseven
Sick building syndrome has nothing to do with openable windows. Openable windows just happen to be a bandaid for sick building syndrome.
EternallyIgnorant
Also, I know nothing about this but the earlier comment doesnt seem to be factoring in you can do this to some windows while having others openable. Say there is four windows in a kindal large room, you could have one openable but the others not.
Isthe4thtimethecharm
I would say longevity would be the big factor. Also, skyrise Windows can take a beating. These might not. But if these lasted 10 years, I wouldn't want to replace all the windows in that time frame.
kaneinencanto
No reason something like that couldn't be sandwiched inside a typical high rise window.
TheMoonBnuuy
True, but buildings need windows. Just because it's a little under half as efficient as conventional solar cells doesn't mean windows shouldn't have them.
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
That efficiency is for semi-transparent panels. Fully transparent ones are more like 1% efficient. You're paying a lot of money for what's basically a window that generates a very little electricity. Is it cool tech? Yes. But you have to decide where to put your resources. Do you spend $10 million on retrofitting one skyscraper to produce an extra 10,000 watt-hours of energy a day? Or do you build a wind turbine that produces 1,000,000 watt-hours per day?
gman003
There's still a cost-benefit tradeoff. Is a regular window + a regular solar panel somewhere else, cheaper per watt than a solar-panel-window? And does it still work well as a window? That's what kills most of these concepts; dedicated tools usually work better than combining everything into one.
kubi
Don't forget the infra to get that power from said windows into the grid. All the extra wiring and controllers and such. And how long into its expected lifetime it will be before it recovers its own cost of creation and installation.
TheMoonBnuuy
That's a valid point, but without actual figures, nobody can really do a proper cost/benefit analysis.
KuldFyt
Partly depends on the real estate (finding space that you personally can control in say, NYC, is a challenge of it's own), but also consider what else you want the window doing. Blocking UV&IR is often worth spending $$ on without harvesting any power. A UV/IR blocking coating that can pay for itself in energy production has some meaningful situational appeal, especially if there's an existing solar infrastructure (roof panels, etc) that's easy to plug into.
TheMoonBnuuy
Ok, but 10% of the solar energy coming through a window being converted to electricity is still infinitely more than 0% more without.
gman003
And 25% of the solar energy hitting the ground in the middle of the Sahara, being converted into electricity, is even more than that, and for the same cost I bet you can grab more light, because the panel can be cheaper and angled better to catch sunlight. The limiting factor is not "how much light hits the Earth" but "how many PV panels can we make?". We can worry about micro-optimizing every square inch, once we've covered every empty desert with solar farms.
TheMoonBnuuy
Just because we have no use for deserts doesn't mean they don't have eco systems.
gman003
Heck, if this is a bad enough window, it might not even generate net power. How good of an insulator is it? If the AC has to run 10% harder because the heat keeps coming through these solar windows, that a better window would block, that's easily going to be more power than they generate.
Adester
Yes, it does. It costs the same if not even more energy and resources to produce these cells. You are more than doubling the environmental impact for the electricity you get. And in the end you might even have to switch the lights on because the rooms are so dark now...
TheMoonBnuuy
I've heard "how insulating are they? it might require running the AC more" and you're going "oh no it absorbs some visible spectrum light, we'll have to run lights more"
Reducing insolation by not letting as much light through could reduce AC use by more than the energy cost of modern LED lighting. Just saying.
dunkum09
I mean, in my experience, the lights were going to be on anyway. especially in the further interior areas away from the windows. but my cube at work is right across from a window, and the overhead lights are on during the day regardless. the efficiency trade-off still matters, though. also a consideration: maximum solar yield will only be on 1 or 2 faces of the building, max, and in an area with a lot of tall buildings lower floors would et less light as well both diminishing the usefulness
TheMoonBnuuy
You're assuming the environmental impact is equal. I don't know the manufacturing process for these transparent cells, do you?
Adester
The top comment has a link to a video. It is literally conventional solar cells, just with an additional production step to the glass. It is utter nonsense.
IrrationalNumber
Consider office towers. The amount of window space vs. rooftop space.
Badprenup
Okay now consider the following: A lone office building in the middle of a field in say... Minnesota. You're going to average about 7 hours of sunlight per day. However for about 1/4 of that the sun is so low that you're basically getting nothing out of it in terms of power. The angle of the sun matters too, you're only going to get really good efficiency on the south side of the building. So about 25% of the daylight hours and 40% of the windows are not contributing much of anything. 1/2
Badprenup
As you know, most tall office towers are *not* sitting alone in a random flat field in MN. They are usually surrounded by other tall buildings. So, there goes any use from glass on the buildings that aren't on the outer layer of an office area, at least up to certain stories where they then have sun exposure above that. Even if they have some exposure due to the sun being largely above them, the conversion would be minimal due to the angle the windows *have* to be to work as a window. 2/3
Badprenup
As an alternative, consider this: solar panels retrofitted onto buildings between floors that both act as a partial sun shade over the top part of the windows on the floor below (cooling the interior and reducing energy needed to run AC) and because they are angled upwards and are more 10x more efficient than the glass, they have more exposure to sun and convert more of it to power. It's also much easier to install on existing buildings because you're not replacing thousands of windows and 3/4
Badprenup
The way the windows are connected to the structure in order to get them grid connected, the panels can run their wires outside of the building along their installation and then up or down to get them connected to the grid at ground level or via an additional set of panels on the roof. It's much cheaper, easier, and way more efficient than using this special glass type.
Also, just because it should be said, there is WAY WAY WAY more room for panels on tops of buildings than the sides. Maybe 4/5
Raxiel
Pv panels are getting cheap enough that people are using them as fencing. Simply having more is becoming more cost effective than optimal alignment for a given space.
Rhythmaster
It's still too inefficient. Photovoltaic panels are way better and if you build a bunch of them you can simply transport that electricity from somewhere rural to the heart of the city. The other thing is that the panels can generate even more power if they are gradually moving to have the best angle to get maximum sunlight hitting them at different times of day, something that a stationary glass window pane cannot do. Half of the day it would be in shade.
unluckyandbored
We need to be smarter about where we put these things. There's tons of wasted space in alredy-developed areas that panels can be put. Places like the rooftops of large buildings, or in parking lots (especially for sports stadiums, those lots sit empty 99% of the time)
gesel
It isn't a new idea vertical panels aren't generally very efficient. They're not used not because it is a new idea, it isn't, but because they won't pay back the capex.
AdrianDunne
Assuming the roof is the only part of the tower that's not windows. Typically there's a lot of non-window surface hit by the sun, not just the roof. Before worrying about the less efficient transparent ones, you could clad all the non-window surfaces with regular PV panels.
gesel
Or just stick to efficient horizontal surfaces that are minimum installation cost until we run out of those in 30-100 years and then start worrying about where else we can eek out a few extra watts at a premium per watt.
AdrianDunne
I mean, there's a reason we're sticking them all on roofs, but if you had to use them on the sides of the building replacing the glass will be the last and most expensive option.
gesel
Far more plausible on new construction, a lower capex option, if aesthetics and maintenance permits, is adding shade eaves with standard opaque panels. this also reduces window cleaning and insolance and cooling without obstruction
mieper3
yes but also consider the cost of a solar panel and how long its going to take to earn back that cost and also how long until it needs to be replaced.
(I'm no expert but i think currently the last two answers are both about 10 years)
demosteness
Tbh the cost of not implementing it will be far more expensive
BrdCdn
Sure but you might as well go all nuclear at that point. If it's more expensive than nuclear like these it's pointless and wasteful as they take alot more resources to make.
demosteness
Nuclear is the most expensive of energies. The price of nuclear disasters is invaluable. Just a week after Fukushima disaster, the radiation had crossed the ocean to America. This is cancer. And you can bet your head there will be more nuclear disasters.
poscduke
The cost of not implementing greener fuels is more expensive that doesn't mean that this clear gas is a better alternative to nuclear, conventional solar, wind, hydro and other solutions
demosteness
Funny you put nuclear at the same level of solar and wind. Nuclear is not a green energy, incidents happen, no matter the amount of safety you put on it. Just counting the days until the next nuclear incident.
ElChupaNuggra
*Long Term, aka something no business ever cares about :(
ConspiratorM
My solar panels have a 20 year warranty. So I definitely expect them to last more than 10 years. Now actually recouping my investment, well that may never happen due to my electric company being stingy on paying for my excess generation.
BrdCdn
It's not being stingy it's how power transmission and generation works. If you buy shoes from a store and then try and sell those shoes to another store they are not going to pay you what you paid. The power you put back in goes through alot of losses before it can be used somewhere else. Transformers are not 100% efficient and there are losses over distance. Not to mention it makes it more difficult for the producers to balance the grid. Selling power back isn't a real large scale solution.
ConspiratorM
How much does my electric company pay me? Oh wait, you don't know, so you have no clue if I'm being unreasonable or not. Other companies pay more in this state, but I'm restricted to one specific electric provider because of my location. If I had a choice I could go with Green Mountain that would pay me 100% for my excess electricity.
Adester
Or just build a solar field next to the city.
Sm9yCg
Good luck getting the purchase and permits from all the fossile lobbyists
ProbablyWrong524
And cut into the profits of real estate investors? NoT iN mY bAcKyArD
IrrationalNumber
Ah yes. Because it's cheaper to buy up tons of farmland outside the city and build a solar station there, instead of changing the windows on the building you already own.
jodu
Probably yes. Does it really sound absurd to you?
DarthFutuza
Or just build a nuclear power plant next to the city.
eiger3970
Yeah, like Zaporizhzhya NPP, Kursk NPP, Fukushima NPP, Akkuyu NPP (on an active fault line), 3 mile island NPP, Chernoble NPP, TarongCallideLiddellMtpiperPortaugustaLoyyangMuja NPP et al. Then the Uranium mines can be located near unstable terrorist areas too...yay, genius! Don't mention the waste locations (poor people's backyards so it doesn't matter right?) and numerous other complications. The nuclear power plant in the sky feeding house roofs and now transparent windows is just so silly /s.
PyllyNalleMissionaries
Even accounting for the nuclear accidents, latest of which was *thirteen years ago*, nuclear causes fewer deaths than fossil fuels. There is uranium that can be pulled from *seawater*. End storage of nuclear material is a solved issue with end repository sites. Then again, cognitive dissonance is a strong beast.
Mikataki
You literally could. No transmission lines or loss required.
Jamerperson
DarthFutuza
Because of competing budget constraints. That 30 million dollar grant only stretches so far. Nuclear will give you a lot more power for your money.
TheWhiteBarry
It's significantly more expensive and takes a lot longer to ramp up. We have better options than nuclear at this point and solar is one of them. Very little nuclear will be built going forward as it simply isn't as needed as it once was.
RadonGaming
Nuclear is very power dense. Solar isn't the miracle people believe it to be. Nuclear won't be built much because people fear it and it's a nightmare of public perception. It's the smarter choice for energy density. Renewable doesn't mean immune from damage or incurred costs.
DoctorWookie
Nuke plants are needed to flatten the curve when solar and wind can't fill the need. Sure, the renewables can do most of the heavy lifting, but you need other sources for high demand, off peak generation. It's CAN come from other sources, but nothing competes with nuclear for lifetime cost and environmental impact. At least until we get better batteries. As for time, that's why we need to start building NOW.
Dudeisfood
You got a bse for that opinion there?
RoutemasterFlash
That can work in a country with lots of unused brownfield land. In the UK they're building them on farmland. We already import 40% of the food we eat. It's pretty fucked up.
Adester
UK, like many countries in Europe, have a mandatory percentage of biofuel in their fuel. You guys could easily feed yourself, instead you choose to burn heavy oil without filters in ships to supplement your food supply so you can burn the plants in combustion engines... We do the same here in Germany and pretend that it is environment friendly...
Adester
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-regulations-to-double-the-use-of-sustainable-renewable-fuels-by-2020
theproblemis
given that land is mostly pasture, it's not stopping being pasture just because solar panels are on it. we aren't actually giving up food producing land to build them. that 40% is largely stuff we do not grow here, or did you think getting fruit in midwinter was really good green house tech?
RoutemasterFlash
Here we go, just came up in my feed: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9elj18rz1o
RoutemasterFlash
What are you talking about? Have you ever seen a solar farm in this country? The panels are close to the ground. Of course they're preventing the land being used for anything else. Oh, and lots of that 40% is food that could be produced here. We import around a third of the beef we consume, for example.