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Comment by hubraumhugo | Hacker News Reader

Which solar company has the biggest technological advantage and is best positioned for another solar boom? In which one would you invest?

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PV is a low margin industry right through the chain from polysilicon to installation.

If you just want high returns I'd look elsewhere.

Give me the TSMC or AMD of solar panel manufacturing. If they can do single digit improvements in panels every year or so, they could enable new use cases each generation. I bet those (3nm that computers now have) fabs tools have useful technology for manufacturing solar panels for example.

Also you can’t lay massive solar farms withou native manufacturing. What you’ll just buy them from China for hundreds of billions of dollars cough Europe cough but also the US??

They are so cheap that i think it is unlikely that a minor edge matters

They are not cheap after you factor in costs for installation, the framework, land, etc. Increased efficiency means you also need less of all those.

there's a company now that's laying them flat reducing the cost significantly.

Removes the cost of the frame, reduces efficiency. Presumably whether it's a net gain depends upon the site, eg terrain shape, latitude, need for passive cooling, wind-blown dirt, local fauna, etc.

Can we make pedestrian paths using solar panels yet?

None; they are all hitting up against the same limits with the current technology someone would need to figure out something completely new to trigger another solar boom.

Another? We're already in a solar boom -- annual deployment went from 135GW to 223GW from 2021 to 2022.

Can’t wait for solar to be like paint, steel, concrete etc. - you just have it everywhere and don’t think about it. It is a no brainer.

Buy a shed? Comes with a panel and a battery and a socket inside. As standard.

Quite seriously. I think out of nearly all of the energy options out there (green or not), it's certainly the least "offensive", plus, it's cheap, efficient, and definitely green (other wastage aside), to boot.

What's not to like?

Sometimes more convenient too! The solar panel that came with a free Ring decide I got made it much easier to install.

Now if we can only figure out an equally amazing way to get potable water and sewage taken care of without storage or digging then you'd have a truly magic shed.

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