Solar energy breakthrough could reduce need for solar farms
ox.ac.uk
ox.ac.uk
I don't mean that in a snarky way - it's perfectly normal that not all innovations bear their fruits, that industrialization is harder than expected, etc...
Even if only a fraction of them work, it's called progress.
But I'm curious to know if someone compiles this kind of list.
For example perovskites, which are the focus of this article have gone from having 3% conversion efficiency to 25% efficiency in the last 15 years.
That's amazing progress in the lab but deployment into standard PV markets is effectively zero.
This might change this year, hence articles about deployment, but still only 1GW or so predicted this year.
And even that is "just" tandem cells where you have a layer of standard PV and perovskites working together.
Some of the real sci-fi possibilities of perovskites are of being able to print them easily and cheaply onto flexible lightweight structures entering whole new markets.
But with wider context, it's weird this gets brought up so often in regards to solar PV and batteries which may actually be two of the most impactful technical revolutions in human history, totally reshaping the whole world right now at a breathtaking speed that surprises even enthusiasts that are paying attention.
https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2024/10/nearly-half-the-electr...
If you look at the chart it is clear that as renewables are rising (both wind and solar), fossil based electricity declines (including gas).
This is easily understood when you consider that gas is used to generate way more than the baseload. When solar energy is producing, it is more often than not cheaper than gas, and when it isn't it is easy enough to supplement with gas. That means solar competes, but doesn't replace.
There are lots of problems with the transition we are making, some are real, some are due to stupidity and others to greed and malice. It doesn't help that the solutions have become so politicized. I'm convinced that at the end of the transition we'll have an abundant amount of cheap, renewable and clean energy.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/06/17/longi-claims-34-6-eff...
The article kind of sucks, like most gee-whiz solar reporting. Battery reporting IMO has gotten a bit better where they actually address cycles/density/materials.
Multijunction solar is still ridiculously undeveloped industrially, and perovskite or silicon+perovskite multijunction could lead to a lot of progress.
What's important about these articles is that solar, which is already exceptionally cheap in LCOE terms, still has runway to likely drop 50% in price in the next 10 years.
I continue to be frustrated with the cost of home/residential solar, which I think is a key part to avoiding excessive grid restruction, increasing resilience in disaster scenarios, double-utilizing already-industrialized/developed land/structures rather than using "pristine" land, and providing key competition to inherent-monopoly utilities.
So cheaper spray-on or coating-based solar might help close the residential vs grid solar gap.
Can this be fixed with (for example) some kind of spray-on acrylic ?
I'm assuming a thing sprayable film which you would most certainly want to be lead-free and inherently would have a higher surface area of air exposure has addressed both, so this would be very promising at 20%+ efficiencies.
If you search google scholar or similar for the area you're interested in, and limit it to the last year or two, you can probably find plenty of info.
As an example, here is a search for "commercialization of novel solar technologies" since 2023 and it has plenty of good looking papers: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2023&q=commerciali...
simply printing the press release with minor word and paragraph order change ("cooking the press release") is frowned upon but very common.
usually when you see one of those, the very first thing you do is make a note to never go back to that news company, or at least the journalist signing it. but often cooked press releases are not signed.
there are places which compile press releases as a service to journalists having to fill pages.
On the other hand, it’s Oxford, source of some of the greatest achievements in human history. If they want to trumpet something that’s going on, I’d give them the benefit of the doubt it’s worth a sniff. And here at HN, people who know might chime in.
So, I don’t do this all the time, but I made an exception and floated it, apparently reasonably.
I also had a personal connection, which was the micron thin film aspect, which my dad worked on at a megacorp for his whole career. Would have been great to be able to chat with him about it, ach well.
What’s interesting was that they seemed to go off the radar when they got their investments and initial customers. Hard to find articles and news about them. Recently I found an interview where they talked about that they had been selling batteries to some niche applications with very specific requirements. Now they seem to be coming into the limelight again and have shipped prototype EV battery packs.
In fact it seems like several solid or semi solid state battery techs are just about to reach mass market these days. It’s what.. like 10 years ago we saw all these break through articles (and the obligatory complaints about break through articles)?
Interesting? Sure! But let me know after it's been reliably reproduced a few times by other groups
Plus having the space back would be nice.
So that's a lot more than the current solar panels.
The solar panels themselves have become an minor portion of the cost of an install. At this point, the land area and labor install costs have become massive. If you can counter this with panels that are 25% more efficient than current commercialized panels and only 20% more expensive, you need to pay for much less area and labor to install and maintain them. Could be a huge win overall.
Not worrying about land use when it comes to power generation is very, very much like not worrying about carbon emissions when it comes to power generation/transport/manufacturing "The atmosphere is enormous! Why should we worry about emissions when our current demand for power and transport is so tiny?"
Panels have a limited lifetime. If in the future we figure that land becomes more valuable for some reason we can still replace them.
In other words this is pure speculation.
Put out by the PR wing of the researcher’s university
I give it a 1% chance