
Japanese research firms part of global effort to develop spray-on solar panels - farouteast
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/23/business/tech/japanese-researchers-firms-part-global-effort-develop-spray-solar-panels/
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Animats
"Spray on solar panels" usually means making solar cells with a printing-like
process. That's been done several times.[1][2] Works fine. But the resulting
panels were not cheaper. They're flexible, which makes them popular for boats,
tents, and RVs. Lifespan is shorter; you can get a 10 year warranty, but not
much beyond that.

[1] [http://www.pascaltechnologies.com/files/Whitepapers/Uni-
Sola...](http://www.pascaltechnologies.com/files/Whitepapers/Uni-
Solar%20Tech%20and%20Manufacturing%20Process%20Guha.PDF) [2]
[http://plasticphotovoltaics.org/lc/lc-
fabrication/lc-r2r.htm...](http://plasticphotovoltaics.org/lc/lc-
fabrication/lc-r2r.html)

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jlebrech
spray on could work well for creating solar panels on another planet don't you
think? especially if you source the silicon locally.

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AstralStorm
The problem is we do not really need cheaper panels, we need high efficiency
ones. Solar is currently cheap enough.

Not that the spray technology is worthless.

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morsch
I've read the argument that it's the opposite: since there is plenty of area
left for solar panels (roofs, for one thing), efficiency (in terms of energy
per area) is less important than price (energy per dollar).

OTOH, I have also read that for many installations, especially home-scale
ones, the cost of the solar panels itself is in the same magnitude as all the
other installation costs; in that case, the best way reduce price (and
increase energy per dollar) would be to increase efficiency, effectively
installing "more energy" at the same time for the same installation cost.

So maybe we don't need cheaper panels, but do need cheaper installations, and
a way to do that is to have more efficient panels.

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agumonkey
There's also transparent cells, a few companies are trying to market them
right now. Lot of areas to reuse, probably low installation fees too.

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galdosdi
Interesting! But for every bit of light that goes through, that's light not
being used by the panel. Do these transparent cells do any better in terms of
effeciency than just using a more effecient, nontransparent, smaller cell
combined with a regular window? For example, what gives more energy, a
transparent cell of 1 square meter area of 50% opacity, or a regular cell of 2
square meters?

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agumonkey
Detail: it's not a "visible lightwave" cell, it captures near infra red and
other part of the non visible spectrum, so the usual light energy is not
absorbed, it's 95%+ transparent for us, but it yields some voltage. I don't
have the figures (I should have looked at); the first company I've seen was
Ubiquitous Energy (from a Stanford or MIT lab prof. circa 2013). I've read on
some research paper that there are other in the competition.

Maybe the power output is too low.. considering how many zillions of office
windows could be converted I assumed they'd be as famous as tesla.

