Solar energy news and discussion

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wjfox
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Re: Advances in solar tech news and discussion

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New record solar cell efficiency

8th July 2022

The first tandem perovskite-silicon solar cells to exceed 30% efficiency have been independently certified.

https://www.futuretimeline.net/blog/202 ... meline.htm


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funkervogt
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Re: Advances in solar tech news and discussion

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Solar panels are about to create a huge waste problem as they reach the end of their lives.
Recycling solar panels isn’t a simple process. Highly specialized equipment and workers are needed to separate the aluminum frame and junction box from the panel without shattering it into glass shards. Specialized furnaces are used to heat panels to recover silicon. In most states, panels are classified as hazardous materials, which require expensive restrictions on packaging, transport and storage.
Orben said the economics of the process don’t make a compelling case for recycling.

Only about $2 to $4 worth of materials are recovered from each panel. The majority of processing costs are tied to labor, and Orben said even recycling panels at scale would not be more economical.

Most research on photovoltaic panels is focused on recovering solar-grade silicon to make recycling economically viable.

That skews the economic incentives against recycling. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that it costs roughly $20 to $30 to recycle a panel versus $1 to $2 to send it to a landfill.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/ ... ing-danger
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caltrek
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Re: Advances in solar tech news and discussion

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^^^To me this is yet another example of how our onrushing development of technology can actually create more jobs than it eliminates.

What I came here to post:

How Steel in Our Buildings Can Generate Clean Energy
July 14 , 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert)) Solar roofing panels which are greener, lighter, cheaper and flexible, and which can be printed on the steel used in buildings, are the focus of a new three-year research collaboration between Swansea experts and Tata Steel UK.

The solar roofs would enable buildings to generate, store and release their own secure supply of electricity. This would reduce reliance on fossil fuel energy such as gas, and ease pressure on the National Grid, especially as surplus power generated by a building can be used to charge up electric vehicles.

The concept is called "Active Buildings" and it has already been shown to work. Two “Active Buildings” have been in operation successfully on the Swansea University campus for several years. The aim of the new research is to explore the potential of this technology further and speed up the process of turning it into products for industry to manufacture.

The collaboration was launched with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding at the University’s Bay campus, where the Active Buildings are located. It is the latest chapter in a longstanding partnership between Swansea University and Tata Steel.

Solar energy is crucial in the shift towards clean, green power. In just one hour enough solar energy falls on the earth to meet the energy needs of the entire world for a year.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/958803

More about active buildings: https://www.specific.eu.com/what-are- ... ildings/
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caltrek
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Re: Advances in solar tech news and discussion

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Photovoltaics: Fully Scalable All-Perovskite Tandem Solar Modules
July 14, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have developed a prototype for fully scalable all-perovskite tandem solar modules. These modules have an efficiency of up to 19.1 percent with an aperture area of 12.25 square centimeters. This result, the first of its kind reported worldwide, was made possible by improving efficiency with optimized light paths, high-throughput laser scribing, and the use of established industrial coating methods. The researchers present their results in the journal Nature Energy. (DOI: 10.1038/s41560-022-01059-w)
As a readily available and versatile energy source, sunlight plays a key role in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources and in an independent energy supply. Solar cells convert sunlight into electricity. In recent years, solar cells made of perovskite semiconductors have shown great promise thanks to their high efficiency and low production costs. But the efficiency of an individual perovskite cell is still limited in spite of enormous progress. This limitation can be overcome by stacking two solar cells with different band gaps. The band gap is a material characteristic that determines the part of the incident spectrum that a solar cell absorbs to generate electricity.

Efficiency Boost from Stacking

Tandem solar cells use a broader range of the spectrum and generate more electricity, making them more efficient. Perovskite solar cells with a tunable band gap are ideal tandem partners not only for solar cells made of other materials but also for all-perovskite tandem solar cells. They feature low-cost production, solution-based processing methods, mechanical flexibility, and the freedom to combine cells with different perovskite band gaps. Researchers expect all-perovskite tandem solar cells to gain a high market share in the future if they can satisfy requirements for stability and scalability. Scalability means that new designs can be applied at larger scales and in mass production.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/958823
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caltrek
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Re: Advances in solar tech news and discussion

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funkervogt wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 1:59 pm Solar panels are about to create a huge waste problem as they reach the end of their lives.
Recycling solar panels isn’t a simple process. Highly specialized equipment and workers are needed to separate the aluminum frame and junction box from the panel without shattering it into glass shards. Specialized furnaces are used to heat panels to recover silicon. In most states, panels are classified as hazardous materials, which require expensive restrictions on packaging, transport and storage.
Orben said the economics of the process don’t make a compelling case for recycling.

Only about $2 to $4 worth of materials are recovered from each panel. The majority of processing costs are tied to labor, and Orben said even recycling panels at scale would not be more economical.

Most research on photovoltaic panels is focused on recovering solar-grade silicon to make recycling economically viable.

That skews the economic incentives against recycling. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that it costs roughly $20 to $30 to recycle a panel versus $1 to $2 to send it to a landfill.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/ ... ing-danger
This brings me back to the days when I was paid to attend meetings regarding waste management. In particular, implementing AB 939 (see: https://riversideca.gov/publicworks/tra ... r%20means.).

Attendance was part of my responsibility to coordinate monitoring of inactive waste dump sites that were sprinkled throughout the unincorporated areas of our California county. I imagine that this is probably a subject that comes up for discussion today among those same people and their successors. Unfortunately, I no longer attend those meetings.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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caltrek
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Re: Advances in solar tech news and discussion

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All-in-one Solar-powered Tower Makes Carbon-neutral Jet Fuel
July 20, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Researchers have designed a fuel production system that uses water, carbon dioxide (CO2), and sunlight to produce aviation fuel. They have implemented the system in the field, and the design, publishing July 20 in the journal Joule, could help the aviation industry become carbon neutral.

“We are the first to demonstrate the entire thermochemical process chain from water and CO2 to kerosene in a fully-integrated solar tower system,” says Aldo Steinfeld (@solarfuels), a professor from ETH Zurich and the corresponding author of the paper. Previous attempts to produce aviation fuels through the use of solar energy have mostly been performed in the laboratory.

The aviation sector is responsible for about 5% of global anthropogenic emissions causing climate change. It relies heavily on kerosene, or jet fuel, which is a liquid hydrocarbon fuel typically derived from crude oil. Currently, no clean alternative is available to power long-haul commercial flights at the global scale.

“With our solar technology, we have shown that we can produce synthetic kerosene from water and CO2 instead of deriving it from fossil fuels. The amount of CO2 emitted during kerosene combustion in a jet engine equals that consumed during its production in the solar plant,” Steinfeld says. “That makes the fuel carbon neutral, especially if we use CO2 captured directly from the air as an ingredient, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.”

As a part of the European Union’s SUN-to-LIQUID project, Steinfeld and his colleagues have developed a system that uses solar energy to produce drop-in fuels, which are synthetic alternatives to fossil-derived fuels such as kerosene and diesel. The solar-made kerosene is fully compatible with the existing aviation infrastructure for fuel storage, distribution, and end use in jet engines, Steinfeld says. It can also be blended with fossil-derived kerosene, he adds.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/958862
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Yuli Ban
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Re: Advances in solar tech news and discussion

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And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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caltrek
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Near Invisible Solar Cell Created
by Dr. Katie Spalding
July 21, 2022

Extract:
(IFL Science) A see-through solar cell has been successfully fabricated by researchers at Tohoku University in Japan. It’s powerful – albeit tiny – and it might be coming to a building near you.

(T)he team from Tohoku University has…developed a “near-invisible” solar cell, or NISC – engineers don’t have time to waste on extra syllables – that lets nearly 80 percent of light through. Theoretically, it could be placed anywhere, from the windows in your house to the screen on your smartphone – or even the skin on your body.

“Transparent solar cells (TSCs) have attracted considerable attention as they can overcome the limitations of traditional non-transparent solar cells,” explain the Tohoku researchers in a paper describing the study, recently published in Nature Scientific Reports.

“We successfully fabricated an NISC using ITO [indium tin oxide, one of the most widely used transparent conducting oxides] and monolayer tungsten disulfide […] as transparent electrodes, and photoactive layer, respectively.”

Using these materials – plus a thin layer of tungsten oxide between the ITO and the tungsten disulfide – the team made a solar cell that beats other transparent cells by several orders of magnitude.
Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/near-invisi ... -64541

For a technical discussion of the study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15352-x
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caltrek
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Re: Advances in solar tech news and discussion

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GoSun Solar Powered Electric Cooler Reviewed by CleanTechnica
by Kyle Field
July 20, 2022

Introduction:
(CleanTechnica) GoSun has been tapping into the power of the sun to sustainably power our lives for years, starting with their solar thermal-powered oven. They have expanded their lineup significantly in recent years, building a complementary kit of gear to enable a whole host of off-grid adventures.

Disclaimer: GoSun sent us the Chillest free of charge for the purposes of this review.

They sent us the GoSun Chillest – a full-sized 45 liter electric cooler that comes with an integrated battery. Imagine rolling out to a day at the beach or park with your family and food and not having to stop at the store for ice. You whip out your cooler full of food and drinks and plug it into a solar panel and just like that, your food will stay cold or frozen essentially forever.

The temperature is adjustable from -4F to 68F (-20C to 20C) so you can choose whether you want your drinks cold or completely frozen, depending on what you’re doing. It has a little LCD display to tell you what’s going on and a few buttons to change things around. In my experience, it’s just enough to let you do what you need to do without overcomplicating things.

In addition to the solar, you can also plug it in at home to a standard AC outlet or even a 12 volt automotive outlet using the included adapters. For folks in an RV or similar off-grid setup, the Chillest can also run on 24 volt power or directly off of a portable power station.
Read more here: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/07/20/c ... review/
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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Yuli Ban
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Re: Advances in solar tech news and discussion

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The energy transition is well underway as solar demand blazes higher.

Rob Barnett, a senior clean energy analyst at Bloomberg, forecasted that solar capacity installations are on track to grow by 30% globally this year and see sustained double-digit growth in 2023 through 2025.

“At the end of the day, the global solar picture is just staggering at this point," Barnett told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "We are on track to install something like 250 gigawatts of solar capacity this year. I know most folks don't think in gigawatts, but that is a very large amount. It's more than the installed capacity of a number of European countries.”
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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