Colored solar panels that mimic tiles roof hit 95% efficiency compared to regular solar tiles
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/colored-solar-panels-tiles-roofOpen linkView original on piefed.zip230
Comments44https://interestingengineering.com/energy/colored-solar-panels-tiles-roofOpen linkView original on piefed.zip
Man, that is a hugely misleading headline when casually glanced over. Not 95% efficiency; 95% of other panels....
Typical panels are about 20-24% efficient. So these roof tiles are like 19-22.5%. Not bad.
Edit: didn't knew OP added the "compared to regular panels part". Disregard the rest of this comment.
I think is a good title, it's tells how compare against regular solar panels. Saying their absolute efficiency wouldn't really tell a lot because not everyone knows what means having a 20% efficiency.
It's poorly worded but anyone that thinks panels are anything close to 95% wasn't paying attention. Even hydro power which just gravity and a turbine barely achieves 95%
But heat pumps are over 100%.
If you compare moving heat with making heat, you’re going to get pretty absurd numbers anyway.
No.
The title implies that, somehow, colored solar panels hit 95% efficiency, compared to panels that are not colored. To be clear, it should say:
"Colored solar panels that mimic tiles roof achieve 95% of the efficiency of regular solar tiles"
Do they hit 95% of regular solar tiles efficiency? Or do they hit 95% efficiency, while regular solar tiles hit (presumably) less?
It is a clickbait title because it offers more than one interpretation. One is reasonable (and correct), but not punchy. The other is outlandish (and wrong) but draws the reader in on the off chance that it might be right. Hence the subsequent disappointment in the headline.
If you only see the "correct" interpretation, more power to you: you weren't baited and thus had nothing to be disappointed by.
But the headline is, objectively, phrased to bait the click from a wide swath of readers who question if the "incorrect" interpretation just might be true.
It's poorly worded to mislead into "actual efficiency". People looking at solar panels need the real number, not how it compares to traditional ones. This is at worst misleadingly worded, or at best, poor journalism.
That's why I editorialized and added that bit
Oh, didn't knew you added that.
I appreciate it, but if you'd welcome some feedback next time you might want to do that in [square brackets] to make it clear
People are just not paying any attention whatsoever.
I appreciate the catch! Though I did read it correctly the first time.
The ability to have energy generation from roof tiles is so damn cool!!! The solarpunk future is becoming more true every day, and I'm all for it!
It's a waste of money. Most of the tiles will be in shade. PV panels are better and easily replaced if damaged by weather.
And roof installations for panels are expensive to put in and take out, and need to be taken out to replace roof shingles/tiles under them.
This tech might end up being the best of both worlds for roof panels because they have the potential to remove the frame from the equation.
Tell me they're not shiny enough to melt vinyl siding and I'm sold.
20% is what standard photovoltaics were doing a decade ago. I cannot wait until these are standard on all roofs in a few decades.
Edit: Yes I know the title is misleading, I'm saying these colored roof tiles are performing on par with the setup many Americans installed 10 years ago at the height if the subsidies.
It's 95% of regular panels, so it's 5% worse.
I would go with regular panels in that case, unless they are shaped like tiles and can provide better coverage of the roof. 5% efficiency drop but 15% coverage increase could be worth it. But I expect install costs would be quite a bit higher
They still are, on average. This headline is just poorly worded or outright misleading.
Imagine this + electric cars working as grid storage.
The article talks about colored graphics that can be applied to a panel. So not panels that are shaped like tiles. So they are still normal panels but with colors on them. So these are probably usefully for facades, like the side of a tall building.
When can I buy them?? I've been reading about roof tile panels for ages, but I've never seen on win real life.
Maybe because the ones demonstrated by Elon Musk were made by an LA prop shop and never existed.
Wouldn't you want them all to be black to maximize effectiveness? Damn marketing. In the not too distant future daily talk shows will have segments on which colours are fashionable this year for solar panels.
But why? It's not about heat absorbtion but photon collection
I'm no solar panel expert, just using common sense. If it is not heat conversion then I'm whistling in the wind. Black absorbs more heat, more quickly, but if it is not about heat, just light, then ignore this.
Energy at certain wavelengths hits the solar cell and migrates electrons in a flat plane. Thin wires grab those electrons to make current. Heat actually reduces the efficiency.
There are even mechanisms to have water drip on the panels to cool them.
Solar panels that absord heat exist, those panels are used to heat water. For PV you want to capture photons that kick electrons from the valence band into the conduction band of the material to get an electric current. Basically the inverse of an LED, you turn light directly into electricity. Any heat here is wasted energy. The PV cells are optimised for specific frequency bands and in those bands they don't reflect well. If you want to capture visible light the panels are appearing relatively dark.
Check out why Einstein got his Nobel Price. That's the fundamental mechanism behind solar panels. It has nothing to do with the absorbtion of heat. If you use solar to heat water, that's a different type of solar collector
Actually, photovoltaic solar panels work more efficiently when cold, heat makes them less efficient. I've read.
Sometimes historic buildings have a strict code to follow, this might help to modernize them while keeping the historic aesthetic.
I'd rather they get back to those transparent panels that suddenly vanished from the university page and all articles went poof.
That's a really cool idea. Natural lighting + power generation
I was hoping for it to be manageable on a greenhouse, though they hadn't published any specs on light quality after it passed through them, so no idea if it would have been good for the plants.
or, you know, you can just put them somewhere else and use cables to transport electricity to the house, like it was done the last 100 years.
On my way to buy a plot of land to save on energy bills 🚄
fun fact: buying a plot of land and building solar panels there is cheaper than building solar panels on the roof, if you do it large-scale. like 1 MW each. even though you use extra land area. the reason is mostly how costly it is to climb on roofs and do construction work there.
Yeah, but they aren't doing that very fast. So gotta buy my own.
Have you ever been on a hot roof in summer? At least this puts that necessary but otherwise unused surface area to use.
Still a great piece of tech. I think decentralizing power generation is better for both land use and for the individual.
These panels will be nice for areas with strict architectural laws
Instructions unclear, bulldozed public spaces to build a parking lot with a solar roof over it.
Will try again with nearby farmland.
We say african american solar panels now 😤