New solar panel promises cheaper power

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The technology, built by Fremont's Solyndra Inc., uses racks of solar cells roughly the size and shape of long fluorescent light tubes. The shape allows the panels to harvest sunlight from any angle, including what's reflected from the white rooftops common on large commercial buildings.

The technology promises to cut the cost of solar power.

In March, Solyndra gained a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy to greatly increase its Fremont-based manufacturing operations. According to news reports, the company has contracts for orders worth more than $2 billion.
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Pictures of Solyndra's new panels

Some exciting developments in solar technology. The issue with solar towers are their poor efficiency somewhere around .5-1% . So unless you duo use the tower (as a green house or something) or build it on waste land (deserts), it just doesn't make any economic sense. If someone can come up with a way to improve the efficiency even a little they might be viable.

-ddn

You can put conventional solar panels beneath the dome of the solar updraft tower.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
New solar panel promises cheaper power

Pictures of Solyndra's new panels

What a coincidence, I had the chance to see this from real just last week. The numbers are indeed quite good, but also far from breakthru. Cost-wise, the final shelf price isn't so impressive to me (your mileage will likely vary).

While the albedo effect is well understood to improve the kWh/kWp/year ratio, they have ALOT of unused surface to make up for (remember it's CIGS after all and the panel has alot of empty spaces, look at the video).
I expect they are not going to score significantly better than triple junction on unoptimally oriented surfaces. Also, some triple-junction products deliver integrated waterproofing at small extra cost. I am quite sure they're not going to hold their cost promise in at least some context...

The product is nice and a welcome addition to the solar products portfolio; I will just wait and see how it performs.

By the way, how costly is an installed PV kWp in your country?

According to Solar Module Price Highlights: November 2009, the Retail Price Per Watt Peak for 125 Watts and Higher Modules is $4.34/watt in the US and €4.24/watt in Europe. € 4.24 = 6.349824 US$ (according to google).

Quote: Original post by Sander
You can put conventional solar panels beneath the dome of the solar updraft tower.

Solar panels are like 20% efficient and the tower is like 1% efficient - having a layer of glass between sun and panels may well lower panel efficiency by the 1% the tower saves. Grow tomatoes instead and you can market them as eating pizza to save the planet.

One thing the tower does, which has been shown in the small scale setup is extract water from the air through condensation. So it's more useful as a passive water extractor than a generator. Putting up these towers in the desert you can make fresh water from the air efficiently, given that water in the desert probably returns a higher rate than electricity that would be the more economically viable option.

-ddn

My favorite kind of solar is solar thermal. Unlike PV the backup fossil fuel plant comes explicitly into the price: you have to build heat to electricity turbines by design. Their downside is that they are basically mirrors and heat engines and you can not fool yourself to believe either technology is going to miraculously advance over night (nor ever). Of course, photovoltaics won't ever be much better than solar thermal either, but if you mean to save the planet, you can ignore that and go with the bi-weekly technology breakthrough announcements.

Quote: Original post by Diodor

Quote: Original post by Talroth

Quote: Original post by Sander
Personally I am more interested in Solar Updraft Towers. Much cheaper to build.

I've never understood the primary complaints against solar towers. "They take up so much space!"

Lies. They take ZERO space.

Planned cities built with a working solar tower are the way to go. You're not going to power the entire city that size with a single tower, but you are going to greatly reduce the external power requirements for a city center of that size. Plus you are going to have a fully planned city. Yes it will likely cost billions, but you are going to have a completely planned infrastructure for transit. You are also going to have climate controlled cities with the ability to lock down sections for emergencies.

Basically, you build the tower over a new city!

Nicely done biting sarcasm. It is however rather unfair to solar towers to suggest such an extravagant requirement as building a whole new city from scratch, you can simply use one as a greenhouse for plant cultivation, which it in fact is, making a wee bit of power on the side as an added bonus.

I actually wasn't being sarcastic at all. While an entire city is not needed, it is however a highly practical idea. Major cities are a nightmare from so many angles, and building a planned city from the ground up as a single unified construction has a lot to offer.

Quote: Original post by Talroth

Quote: Original post by Diodor

Quote: Original post by Talroth

Quote: Original post by Sander
Personally I am more interested in Solar Updraft Towers. Much cheaper to build.

I've never understood the primary complaints against solar towers. "They take up so much space!"

Lies. They take ZERO space.

Planned cities built with a working solar tower are the way to go. You're not going to power the entire city that size with a single tower, but you are going to greatly reduce the external power requirements for a city center of that size. Plus you are going to have a fully planned city. Yes it will likely cost billions, but you are going to have a completely planned infrastructure for transit. You are also going to have climate controlled cities with the ability to lock down sections for emergencies.

Basically, you build the tower over a new city!

Nicely done biting sarcasm. It is however rather unfair to solar towers to suggest such an extravagant requirement as building a whole new city from scratch, you can simply use one as a greenhouse for plant cultivation, which it in fact is, making a wee bit of power on the side as an added bonus.

I actually wasn't being sarcastic at all. While an entire city is not needed, it is however a highly practical idea. Major cities are a nightmare from so many angles, and building a planned city from the ground up as a single unified construction has a lot to offer.

What other government besides China's and North Korea's would be willing to make such an investiment just to provide some cheap energy to a small sector of such a city? From a capitalist point of view that's just nuts.