Yeah, that's 100% a problem worth calling out and fixing. But we really do need efficiency gains in solar panels, and silicon is maxed out. Figuring out how to make perovskite more workable is absolutely worth the effort, and commercializing it is a crucial step for that.
Do we need efficiency gains? Like more is better, but in the US, land is cheap in many areas. A panel that is 5% better, but degrades faster might not be an economic win for a commercial power plant.
> when they use so many toxic materials ... but degrades faster
At some point, we need to consider that "labour cost becomes dominant" is absolutely irrelevant if the external costs we're completely ignoring at enormous.
> Do we need efficiency gains? Like more is better, but in the US, land is cheap in many areas.
Yes. Anything that lets us offline coal plants faster will save lives. Assuming all else is equal, it's literally free energy. Why wouldn't you want that? What a bizarre question.
> A panel that is 5% better, but degrades faster might not be an economic win for a commercial power plant.
Obviously you have to multiply efficiency by longevity. If that equation didn't work out, they wouldn't be commercializing it.
> Yes. Anything that lets us offline coal plants faster will save lives. Assuming all else is equal, it's literally free energy.
I agree with that. But all else is not equal. The more efficient panels are much more expensive than the regular panels (and there are no signs of this changing any time soon). Cheaper regular panels (and prices are still falling) are more helpful. Aside from which, panels are already cheap enough for cheap energy. It's energy storage costs (and availability of storage technology in general) that are the blocker at this point.
> Obviously you have to multiply efficiency by longevity. If that equation didn't work out, they wouldn't be commercializing it.
I suspect they won't be commercialised for grid-scale power plants. They'll likely be used in space, and perhaps on things like boats and RVs where space is also at a premium.
> The more efficient panels are much more expensive than the regular panels (and there are no signs of this changing any time soon).
I'm pretty confident we'll be replacing silicon panels with another, more efficient tech before long. Something will bust through silicon's efficiency barrier. It may or may not be perovskite-based panels, who knows, buit I still think it's exciting to see the research & gains in this area. It's great to have more options coming online.
It is as free as nuclear, or water generated. The infrastructure must be installed and maintained. Panels, their cleaning, changing failed/broken, inverters, cables, batteries (eventually).
Right now it is mandatory to install in Germany after a major roof renovation. Turns out the typical small home electric needs are about 1000 EUR per year, the installation of a solar system is about 25000. I do not see what is free…
Yes. Should is the key word. As the government pushes lots of people to install solar, prices soar… also my house is particularly bad for solar (roof parts looking exactly west-east) so I install double of what will be used. Also high roof, so according to regulations, all house has to be with scaffolds around. Just that+permits+ connection to the grid by a “meister” costs around 5k… German efficiency is called…
Well, the article under discussion is about the tech being commercialized, so presumably they believe it is cost competitive at least in some scenarios.
I don't understand why you're so hung up on the idea that 120 units for the same cost as 100 units means you get 20 units for free when comparing the two options.
Here, I'll spell it out a bit more:
Assume the mfr is not lying and the panels are 20% more efficient.
Assume that in order to commercialize a new product, it must be cost competitive with existing options. Otherwise no one would choose it, and it would not be commercialize-able.
Therefore, it is a reasonable position to assume that the new panels will give 20% more energy for about the same cost.
This is all hand-wavey, and it is of course possible the commercialization will fail. But until that happens, I think it's pretty cool that we have new tech coming to the market that's showing significant efficiency improvements!
I have no problem with the math, I take issue with your assumptions to get there, namely that these panels will be anywhere near cost-competitive with traditional panels. I hinted earlier that this new panel is manufactured by taking a traditional one and slapping a perovskite cell onto it, so you are assuming this whole tech is literally free.
I think this is amazing tech too, but you're maintaining "this is free energy" with zero evidence outside of a press release that does not mention cost. I'm sorry, this isn't hand-wavey, it's flat-out misinformation. If you have actual information on pricing, please share it.
> so you are assuming this whole tech is literally free.
No I'm not. I'm assuming it's commercially viable, or else they wouldn't be trying to put it into production.
The context of the post you're being weird about was a reply to someone saying "Do we need [solar panel] efficiency gains?", I wasn't specifically talking about the numbers of this tech in that post.
I assumed they were talking about the numbers of this tech in that post. I assumed everyone was talking about the numbers of this tech. You quoted the next bit about land use in the US:
> > Do we need efficiency gains? Like more is better, but in the US, land is cheap in many areas.
> Yes. Anything that lets us offline coal plants faster will save lives. Assuming all else is equal, it's literally free energy. Why wouldn't you want that? What a bizarre question.
I'm sorry if I'm being weird. It really looks like you're arguing efficiency is something standing in the way of saving lives.
> Assuming all else is equal, it's literally free energy.
When comparing silicon and perovskite (and probably any other material) this is a bad assumption. Since this is a bad assumption, the rest of your position falls apart.
There are space limited use cases which would benefit from higher efficiency such as cars and yachts. Yachts are nearly able to cruise entirely on solar.
This is the first I’ve heard of perovskite so I have no idea: are the cited toxicity issues fixable? Or are they inherent to the chemistry of this class of panels? How do we decide how much extra short term toxicity is acceptable? Do we do that blindly without theoretical/empirical results that demonstrate a better end state?
I'm no expert here, either. Lead is regulated pretty carefully these days, so I have to think if this was a deal-killer, then it would've killed the deal already. This conversation has the feel to me of internet armchair commenters insisting they know more than the experts. Shrug.
My understanding is that there could in theory be perovskites that don't contain the toxic materials. But all known perovskites that are suitable for PV panels do happen to contain them.
Because we're already past midnight on the climate catastrophe clock, and every gain counts. If we get a 20% jump in solar panel efficiency, that means we can offline coal plants even more quickly.
Producing more cheap panels is much better solution than waiting for more expensive, more efficient panels that aren't available now. I'm surprised someone who is concerned about catastrophe wants to wait. Solar panels are cheap enough that big installations are putting them on the ground than making mounts. There is plenty of ground.
There are places where more efficient panels would be useful. With rooves, where if spending effort to mount them then might be worth using more efficient panels. Or the flexible panels might be easier to mount.
> Producing more cheap panels is much better solution than waiting for more expensive, more efficient panels that aren't available now. I'm surprised someone who is concerned about catastrophe wants to wait.
Huh? Can you point out where I said we should wait?
It was rhetorical cause you obviously don't. But you are arguing for the slower, more expensive option. Current panels are faster and cheaper. The efficiency doesn't really matter for utility solar.
It is unlikely that perovskite panels will ever get cheap enough for efficiency gain to matter unless there is some breakthrough in production. Current solar panels have too much of a head start.
> But you are arguing for the slower, more expensive option
No I'm not. I'm not arguing for anything. I'm excited to have more options for solar deployments! If the best option for a current time & deployment is silicon, then great! Use silicon! If perovskite does nothing more than put price pressure on silicon to get even cheaper, then that's great, too! I'm excited about green technologies :)
> It is unlikely that perovskite panels will ever get cheap enough for efficiency gain to matter unless there is some breakthrough in production
We'll see! We're pretty good at making improvements. Will perovskite see the same amazing price drop that silicon has? I don't know, but I'm excited to see the first step in that possible path happening.
Solar panels will continues to be installed at a breakneck pace for likely another decade or more. So the sooner we get more efficient panels, the sooner they can be installed rather then the less efficient ones. It's very straight forward what they were saying.
> It's very straight forward what they were saying.
This thread has been a wild exercise in people tripping all over their own feet in their huge rush to educate me that a new technology is not some flawless miracle device, lol.
Armchair comment. Roofs are about the worst place. All the working at heights safety issues, the wide diversity of roof plans, the small size of individual roofs, the cost and difficulty of maintenance, and on and on.
The real move here is to roll them out in fields mostly unusable for other purposes. These days, you can put up an entire field installation in a day or two. Getting them onto roofs requires a whole lot more effort for a whole lot less capacity.
Furthermore you can take a shortcut by mounting them either flat on the ground (dead simple) or vertically (no worries about dust or snow) (use them as a fence). The loss of efficiency might be marginal, depending on your latitude and weather.
