@@escapetherace1943 it is affordable, you get your money back and then you not only get electricity for free you can even sell the excess for profit. Getting solar is an investment.
@@escapetherace1943 it depends on the cost of electricity in your area but for most of the population solar is cheaper. But due to the relative big upfront cost and general distrust of it from the general population most people steer away from it
Actually I believe that the potential output of power over the course of its life, minus the cost for manufacturing and installation including labor even if you do it yourself would be a better way to judge how practical it is. It may cost more up front, but could generate more electricity over the span of its life potentially offsetting the initial investment.
Dude, you're churning out videos in the last few weeks like... dayum! I mean for doing all the rendering in Blender yourself, plus graphics and voice work that's frickin amazing. When compared to other channels who use mostly stock footage, 2D animations or overlays this is a really unique, personal, information dense and appealing 𝔸 𝕖 𝕤 𝕥 𝕙 𝕖 𝕥 𝕚 𝕔. You've quickly become my favourite science/engineering channel
man this comment gives me hope for my channel lol, i love that there are so many people interested in engineering :) time to step the qaulity up on my end xD
Take Introduction to Electronic Material as a class or just look up a video on it. Teaches you all about electron avalanching, Fermi levels, band gaps, MOSFET/semiconductor chemical layout, etc. Super awesome stuffs.
Yes it is chemistry but not in the usual sense the elements used create pn junctions ( diodes ) that are sensitive to photons ( light) and this is solid state semiconductor property that relies on the quantum physics in the materials. In much the same way A LED ( light emitting diode PN junction ) emits light when a voltage is applied, this same material creates a voltage when light is applied to the junction. Read up on Transistors and diodes as they operate on the same principles and the theory of their operation. For example a P type material has an excess of spaces where electrons are missing in the lattice crystal structure of the material an N type has an extra electron in its lattice structure applying light to it knocks the electron free and it goes to the extra space in the P material with this causing an electron flow from N to P over the junction this is done by doping the materials with impurities to create an N or P type material
@@johncherish7610 and the direct flow through substance is blocked in some way so electrons go through our wires/create voltage? Or am I mixing stuff up
I like the Cave Johnson's vibe these videos have, they feel like I'm watching the future or something XD Really nice dude keep it up, it's really good!
Do you have a citation for the paper/patent? Also, to say that we haven't been able to surpass a 22% barrier without concentrators isn't true. Take a look at the NREL efficiency chart and there are plenty of cases above 22%.
all of them seem to be either 1) labs doing testing hence - non production models 2) concentrator systems - which means motorised arrays and cooling towers etc so very expensive for residential uses Basically coming back to the fact that what is widely available and in use, is still within the 22% range.
If I recall, efficiencies like these are Very impressive! Coal and biofuel loose a Ton of power, because the plants use a lot of the power themselves, weren’t effective at collecting all energy hitting them in the first place, and then even more energy is lost converting the material into a fuel we can use.
There's 2 things that are incredibly important to make this worth it, or any solar panels for that matter: 1. Can it be recycled? 2. What is the actual lifespan in typical uses? The main benefit of having highly efficient panels is that we dont need to devote nearly as large areas of real estate to make sufficient quantities of production. But solar panels start losing their appeal if we have just having them clogging up landfills in 20-30 years.
1) Not at the moment. 2)degradation begins at approximately five years. This can be as high as 50%buy year 12. Thank you for your questions, we d be happy to answer any other questions.
I wanna know how is he doing the text, or he renders all the basic animations, keep the frames for a while and change it again upon giving new information
"Efficiency" starts with the house and appliances and the user. Why are efficient chest freezers, vacuum panel insulation, LED lighting and passive heating/cooling NOT discussed? Marketing hype and profits (no, "energy star" is not even close to best efficiency) A smartly designed house (Michael Reynolds for example) just isn't legal in most cities. We have DUMB Building Codes houses, yet park Smart Cars in them The "tech" is fun, but its the USA bureaucracy that needs "Development" yes, i went pure solar in 1998 when it was 7$/watt (no incentives/free money), with hyper efficiency 'everything' first...because i value Freedom (evidently, more than most people)
When talking efficiency, is that referring to the photons from a particular spectrum such as visible light or does the statement cover the entire spectrum?
Nice video but a couple of questions come to mind. What is the degradation curve of these panels and what is the end life recyclability of these panels? There a lot of heavy metals mentioned. I'd love to see a video on high efficiency solar cells that have the capability to be produced at a scale and cost to allow wide spread adoption and that are environmentally friendly at the end of their life.
The < 20% efficiency range for solar cells has been broken a long long time ago. As in (long long) 35 years ago. The reason why they're not in common use is because they are expensive as hell. Fit for use only with space applications where the cost is no barrier and the gain in out put is warranted. Like with the Mars rovers.
Sooooooooooooooo for application for civilian usage, the record has finally been broken. That, I think, was the fuckin point. Like, maybe now we wont have to see such wonderful panels shot off into space at the cost of billions, instead, we can just look at our roof, and feel pride in humanities accomplishments for the little guy.
You didn't change the nature of the solar cells, you get twice as much energy as before to begin with, so you end up with twice as much energy. This ain't rocket science yo. (oh yeah I'm also ignoring the fact that two suns in the sky would prolly kill us all anyway)
@@michelangelobuonarroti916 Good point That makes it a bit more difficult for a roof mounted solution. I wonder how any extra efficiency and cost savings would compare to the extra power and financial cost of running the tracker for a solar farm 🤔... ... and weight and volume costs for space launch ... also curious if the other "solar concentrator" solution required a tracker too?
It can work but you will lose about 1 or 2 percent of light in the prism and your total panel area will be larger than the area of the prism that the light is landing on which makes it totally space inefficient. So you will be trading capture efficiency for conversion efficiency
@@lugiarboy maybe going theough a concentrator lense on one axis first to reduce the area and then through the prism on opposite axis. (Additional cost and mass for the tracker to pull but have to see how much cost reduction for from the panels themselves balances that out) 😉
Amazing achievement, one clarification - to state the efficiency record jumped from 22% to 39.7% is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. 22% would be in the silicon solar cell technology architecture. 39.7% is a 6-junction multi-junction solar cell, as you indicated, with many prior achievements in the multi-junction solar cell technology under AM1.5 global irradiance (excluding concentrator of AM0 irradiance). The NREL link indicates the historical progression of solar cell efficiency records across different types of solar cell architectures: www.nrel.gov/pv/cell-efficiency.html.
I do not trust their long term chemical stability silicon has a long term demonstrated reliability. We are not short of space for solar cells. Put them over highways shade for cars and electricity for cars no extra land used. I was shocked to see a field in Holland turned over to solar modules terrible idea.
David-Paul true. I don’t understand that either. The modern human seems to lack practicality. There are so many rational options. What I see is that Renewables in general need a makeover. Imagine what beautiful things would happen if nations threw their money together to hire the best PR-consultants instead of just burning their money while as a side effect reducing the acceptance of renewables. Imagine PR-consultants for once serving an important goal instead of just some greedy companies.
Yes, or at least that's the case with older ones. There were concentrator panels made in the 80s (90s?) that had much higher output but they also had short lifespans. The fresnel lenses cooked the cells. Dunno about modern versions with that issue, but I bet it's still a problem. Maybe they have half the lifespan instead of 1/10 or something..?
It will blow your mind when I tell you that in profession I work we call it "ali" or less common "alu". It is very rare to hear someone saying or even writing on official documentation the full word
Normal solar panels work much better in the cold, even with much less light. Our 305 W panels have hit 385 W output in Jan when it was -25 C with a wind. That translates to mid 30's %. In space it is near absolute zero on the back side so I would expect higher output and the big one, no clouds to weaken the sunlight. Higher efficiency panels at a reasonable cost would be fantastic for things like boats with limited areas to mount the panels.
When accidentally the sun shines and the panels are mounted in exactly the perfect angle to the sun which is for most fixed panels only a few minutes a day ...... and for a max of about 5 years before the efficiency declines rapidly ....... a waste of space, money and effort except for some remote location applications ! 78 million toms of solar panels are rotting away on garbage dumps in the US alone right now as we speak ...... i.e. an ecological disaster of epic proportions !
What about separating the frequencies by diffraction grating and holographic lens and positioning the appropriate material for each band gap at the appropriate location rather than multi-layer. The area increases but fabrication may be cheaper. The holographic lens can keep the proper cells illuminated as the Sun moves I think. It may allow many more material types to be involved, perhaps increasing overall efficiency. This may be more appropriate for concentraror systems on reflection.
I believe in terms of future potential, a multilayered one is more efficient, as no energy is lost to the refraction of the frequencies, but right now i sounds like a really interesting idea
Solar panels generally are about getting W/m^2 you may increase the efficiency but the area you have is increased by N where N is the number of different materials. You'd have to use a concentrator before your grating so all the light that would hit your larger area passes through a much smaller grating and disperses the light over your larger area. Otherwise you are wasting massive amounts of energy, as @Himanshu Goel mentions without the concentrator you'd cancel out your advantages.
I've put 600w of solar panels and a 3.3kw lifepo4 battery in my RV. Best money I've ever spent. It's like a little generator that never needs gas for 20 years!
Currently under 5 cents per watt. A 300wp panel is 70 buck from the factory. Solar is becomming really cheap. Commercial solar farms are delivering energy for under 2 cents per kwh now.
But solar still will not be affordable. Solar will remain not monetarily efficient. Remember when they said getting 20% efficient would make it affordable.
47% in efficiency? Omfg if this method become in large scale we could get a super revolution in solar energy output. It's unprecedent! Thank you a Lot to bring this content! P.s.: idk How people dislike this kind of content, omg
Not necessarily. The biggest cost these days isn't the panels, it's the other hardware that converts it into usable electricity. For most users, space for more cheaper panels, even if they're less efficient, is not a problem.
@Kristian La Vigne Sure, never trust media, but trust some random people on the web that don't provide clear sources, twist and ignore facts to proof a wrong point. Seems legit. The biggest problem is that conspiracy theories always say "think" but just want you to blindly believe.
why are we still trying to make electricity from VISIBLE light? there is so much more energy in UV so why arent we making panels that are designed for this wavelength?
joseph dragojevich I mean, if you find a material that reacts the same way to the higher frequencies, rock on with your bad self. Solar panels need materials that have a specific electron shell configuration, and need to be able to withstand the abuses of environmental strains, so those two conditions limit your choices quite a bit.
Simplest answer is, yes it can be done. Designing solar cells targeted at harvesting only UV light is possible but that comes with different engineering challenges. 1: UV light has high energy but the amount of UV light actually reaching your cell is very little compared to the visible light spectrum due to both the nature of radiation spectrum from our sun and the scattering and absorption of UV light by our atmosphere. So cells designed for this purpose produce slightly higher voltages but insanely low electric currents. To make up for the low currents we need to get more UV light and doing so will require lenses, which puts the UV light capturing cell into the concentrator cell category where even higher efficiencies are already possible. 2: Targeting to capture UV light means the bandgap needs to be about 3 eV or more. if you take a look at the image on the right at 7:47 you can see that the highest bandgap in the cell is 2.1eV. This is the about the highest bandgap you can achieve using alloys of AlGaInPAs due to the possible lattice matching on a substrate of GaAs. To achieve 3 eV, you will be needing a different and more expensive substrate to maintain lattice matching. Silicon and GaAs substrates are much cheaper as they are commonly used in the semiconductor industry today and it will take a very big price drop for any other substrates to be used by the solar industry that is very price conscious. 3: Solar cells that can be bought today are also capable of capturing UV light, just that they are not able to make full use of the fact that UV light can produce higher voltages. That is why tandem cells exist and are the subject of so much research as explained in this video. Just designing more layers can allow you to make better use of the entire light spectrum shining on your solar cell but even more challenges exist. Current matching is one and diminishing returns with more layers is another. At some point adding more layers will be so expensive, it makes no sense to do so and just adding another solar cell beside it is a way cheaper option. TLDR: Solar cells sold in stores are already using UV light, and designing a cell to capture only UV light greatly limits its uses to more expensive, carefully selected situations.
They would need to absord all wavelenghts of light that are produced by the sun, so yes, it should not reflect any light at all. Question is however is it possible to reach such efficiencies due to a lot of the energy being infrared which is heat. Heat decreases efficiency, so we would need a new design for the cells.
Dr. William Shockley was absolutely brilliant, working on modern RADAR, inventing the transistor, the semiconductor and the theory that became the solar panel (the Shockley-Queisser Limit was mentioned in this video). I would even go as far as to argue he was smarter than Einstein if you compare his life's work to Einstein's life's work.
Awesome Video With amazing graphics. You should do a behind the scenes or maybe even a quick workflow tutorial. I think the blender community could learn a lot from your excellent work.
Fact Checking in ur first 20ish seconds. 22% is just the high end of industry standard solar cells. It's not the record. The multi-junction solar cell record with concentrator was set in 2015 at around 44% and non-concentrator record was set in 2013 around 39%. But this is good news overall: solar cells of different designs have set new records in recent years. Please I love science and I know it may be confusing for those viewers who didn't study solar tech science, but since your video is very scientific, please be more technical or specific in how you phrase things. Your video title says 39.7% but in the video you say "a whopping 39.2%". Science articles NREL online says the newest record set by the 6 junction solar cell is 47.1%
Great stuff, as always 👌 Just wanted to comment on what you said at the end, about Solar panels being essential for Mars exploration. Due to Mars' reduced Solar irradiance (about half that of Earth's) and dusty environment, Solar power becomes kind of a "meh" choice. I think they'll try to go nuclear instead, as the main source of power, I mean.
Some of the problems with nuclear, though, is the weight. Having to ship equipment sufficiently effective and safe to provide nuclear power outside of Earth's orbit, is gonna cost a fortune in rocket launch expenses, might as well ship 5x as many solar panels instead. Solar is pretty light weight in comparison.
Aren't all three problems at 5:21 shared by single junction types? And I suspect milti-junc are better at point 2 and 3 than single junc? So please don't mention them in the context of "problems with muti junc"... it might be dangerous. 7:38 hell yeah barely paid science communicator!
@@DunnickFayuro Ahh. so where are they being applied. My point is nature evolved it and we copy it. bragging about 30 something percent isn't all that fantastic considering how highly we think of ourselves.
@@DunnickFayuro I guess my secondary point is plants use the sun for life. We basically aren't interested if there is no profit, money dumped into research and devopment is based soley on profitability. We could be further along if we did it because it is the right thing. We would be further along if money were no option. So no, I am not impressed.
@@chorinu7609 Humans use the sun for life too. Nothing is possible any other way. (Appart maybe for some exotic chemical or radiation feeding bacteria)
Nice video and animations! I don't know if anyone have metioned this already, but at 1:40 you claim that a 3.8 kW system is next to impossible for buildings. I think you have made an error somewhere. I have a 14 kWp Swedish system and only half the size of the average american roof (160 m2 vs 80 m2). Just to let you know! :)
This video is a bit out of date, top of the line panels from 2017 did over 22% and around 221w/sq.m Panel prices have also been under $200 shipped in the medium end since then. Now if you prices include installation, they are more realistic.
The results are very nice. Certainly a way forward. Still sometime untill we get it avaialbake commercially because MOVPE is still a very expensive process. 90+% precursor Gases still go to waste. One can't grow large solar cells, upscalabe I mean. Defects in epitaxial layer are still yet to be eliminated. At 7:59, in the TEM Cross-section I can see a lot of defects in the layers. As of yet the best one cud do.
As a research and developer, I love hearing and seeing new technologies discoveries. What I dislike is the discoveries developed in labs, universities and big corporations never seem to be commercially available. The best most people gets out from these “fabulous” discoveries are the seeds planted for more innovative technologies. In most cases, by time many of these discoveries become commercially available, the technology is obsolete. An example of this is Graphene, the miracle material. Discovered in 2004 by two scientist resulting in winning a Nobel Prize. To this day it has not been able to be economically commercialized in full sheets since it’s discovery in 2004. Oh, it’s a great material and I’m sure will be the a solution to many innovations. In the meantime.
About the note, I -we- will wait for another year with this badass quality! Ps: we would love to know how you animate your work :) pls a video explaining that!
Okay, Fidel: name ONE oil company that is sitting on some "rights" to prevent a solar technology from getting to market. Just ONE. You kids and your childish theories ....
@@fidelcatsro6948 Actually oil companies support solar. They have launched massive solar campaigns in the past because they know that for the other 18 hours you will need a natural gas turbine as a backup. The alternative energy source they actually oppose is nuclear. They have sponsored many anti-nuclear propaganda campaigns in the past, and apparently have played a large part in getting all those laws that make nuclear so slow passed, though I haven't see any 100% proof of this.
This was a very comprehensive explanation. And I am compelled to commend the splendid graphics and how accurate they are. Great job with the animation too. Marvellous.
Thanks for your video, it was REALLY interesting..... It's also dirty business to mine all of these elements, manipulate them chemically to the shape/size desired and assemble them as needed to produce an efficient design.....Like everything else, there is a cost benefit, this also applies to batteries....The benefit being that the Life AND Production of the panel will offset the DIRTY Costs of other technologies, such as Fossil and Coal, for the production of Electricity. A breakthrough that could be consumer viable as far as cost and efficiency is what is really needed in panel technology, in the same way and combined with the next revolution past Lithium Ion Batteries will finally make Solar / Batteries the mainstream power source. Today, in the USA you can buy a 300 Watt decent quality Chinese Panel for about $200 with a 19-20% efficiency. If you are off-grid or if it is too costly to bring the lines to your property, Solar may be a great way to go. I would add a gas generator and/or a Wind Turbine, but you can CHEAPLY over-panel for those low light days if you live in a house with a yard.
The ups needs to be upgraded as well. At the research Center I run, the ups runs on energy from the sun. It doesn't need extra power from mains to charge the battery at night. It has better load distribution technique. SJRTC, #21, RA rd., BLR, IN 560047.
This reminds me of buying the first personal computers, everybody waited for the next better device so they wouldn’t waste their money...it was changing so fast... Lets get home fusion kits going...we have tabletop lab systems with great promise...maybe in 30 years...sorry had to say it.
Seems onemeasure to aborb more energy is not to reduce heat. But to collect it into a way that gains more electricity from the excited molecules and to usethat excitement to make electricity. Similar to the way a microwave oven excites molecules to generate heat. If that movement of molecules could be regulated. You could exploit a previously understood annoyance. By flipping it into a viable energy source.
Am too old and too mis-educated to fully appreciate this, but I loved it and watched to the end. You young engineers could use some practical knowledge about economics and law. Get your hands on a small old book called: Prosser on torts.
Nuclear energy is way wheaper and probably has less of an environmental impact than this per KwH of produced energy. Not mentioning the impossible batteries required to go carbon emission free without natural gas backup ofcourse.
300USD per panel on the low end, that seems so high. In Norway with fairly high prices on everything you can get 320W 1m by 1,657m panel for 158USD including taxes.
I can remember the talk about reaching 20% efficiency, and how everyone would then be able to afford solar electric.
This is already achieved.
@@laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag I think he means it's still not very affordable. At least, to run an entire household from.
@@escapetherace1943 it is affordable, you get your money back and then you not only get electricity for free you can even sell the excess for profit. Getting solar is an investment.
@@escapetherace1943 it depends on the cost of electricity in your area but for most of the population solar is cheaper. But due to the relative big upfront cost and general distrust of it from the general population most people steer away from it
@@omarcarrero3623 couldn't have summed it up better, also you run the risk of bad weather damaging the panels
Well done, educational and entertaining with the beautiful graphics and easy flowing script, voice and music.
Still loving the vids, so glad to see you gaining subscribers!
Great great great video but I don't understand why he talks about LG Neon but fails to mention Sunpower's Maxeon 3 cells which are repordetly better.
Another excellent video.
It all depends upon manufacturing costs... You can double efficiency, but if you more than double the costs...
Great Video! Congratulation.
Would you mind to tell what software do you use for those sick animations?
Actually I believe that the potential output of power over the course of its life, minus the cost for manufacturing and installation including labor even if you do it yourself would be a better way to judge how practical it is.
It may cost more up front, but could generate more electricity over the span of its life potentially offsetting the initial investment.
pretty sure in ISS cost for delivery was calculated in that 300M price
When do you guys think we'll be able to buy solar panels with 30% efficiency
Hmm...
That's nice. I just wish that my absorption of this videos information was more than 50%
Dude, you're churning out videos in the last few weeks like... dayum! I mean for doing all the rendering in Blender yourself, plus graphics and voice work that's frickin amazing. When compared to other channels who use mostly stock footage, 2D animations or overlays this is a really unique, personal, information dense and appealing 𝔸 𝕖 𝕤 𝕥 𝕙 𝕖 𝕥 𝕚 𝕔.
You've quickly become my favourite science/engineering channel
@DriftingAsleep He releases all this quite rapidly for someone, who doesn't do RUclips as his main job.
Are you sure it's Blender? Looks more like Unity to me...
man this comment gives me hope for my channel lol, i love that there are so many people interested in engineering :) time to step the qaulity up on my end xD
@@FFehse-dk9is He overlays the Blender logo at the end of his videos. If it isn't Blender, then I'd be surprised.
TRICLO He’s also f-in hilarious. “PS - Sometimes even I don’t know what I’m saying,” or smth similar in the exquisitely rendered text.
I'm really feeling my mediocre chemistry knowledge here
guess someday i'll get it
Take Introduction to Electronic Material as a class or just look up a video on it. Teaches you all about electron avalanching, Fermi levels, band gaps, MOSFET/semiconductor chemical layout, etc. Super awesome stuffs.
@@FALprofessional Any links? for any videos? I tried looking but if you know one..
to my pinecone brain it sounds like putting a translucent solar panel in front of another solar panel, and calling it one solar panel
Yes it is chemistry but not in the usual sense the elements used create pn junctions ( diodes ) that are sensitive to photons ( light) and this is solid state semiconductor property that relies on the quantum physics in the materials. In much the same way A LED ( light emitting diode PN junction ) emits light when a voltage is applied, this same material creates a voltage when light is applied to the junction. Read up on Transistors and diodes as they operate on the same principles and the theory of their operation. For example a P type material has an excess of spaces where electrons are missing in the lattice crystal structure of the material an N type has an extra electron in its lattice structure applying light to it knocks the electron free and it goes to the extra space in the P material with this causing an electron flow from N to P over the junction this is done by doping the materials with impurities to create an N or P type material
@@johncherish7610 and the direct flow through substance is blocked in some way so electrons go through our wires/create voltage? Or am I mixing stuff up
I like the Cave Johnson's vibe these videos have, they feel like I'm watching the future or something XD
Really nice dude keep it up, it's really good!
When life gives you lemons, you don't make lemonade, you make a bomb out of them and throw them back!
...with the lemons.
@@TomYourmombadil Now I have to play it again.... Look at me, I'm a potato.
cave johnson, were done here!
Can you cite some sources? I want to read up on this
+1 I'd love to see the sources cited in the video description.
Can't agree more!
I think this article is what he is talking about
The current edition of The Economist newspaper p 72 refers to this matter.
just go to spectrolabs and you'll see their 40% cells
Cost per watt for the solar panel is more important than efficiency, but sure, 39.7% is definitely welcomed.
Yes 100% agree
That’s 100% dependant on the application.
On the earth yes. But it is really good for Spacecraft.
And how are those unrelated?
This will increase watts per square meter which is very important when you have limited space
Go GaInAs my boy.
Turn up the GaIn
Or GaInP whatever floats your boat, I don't judge.
B
Q
Do you have a citation for the paper/patent?
Also, to say that we haven't been able to surpass a 22% barrier without concentrators isn't true. Take a look at the NREL efficiency chart and there are plenty of cases above 22%.
all of them seem to be either
1) labs doing testing hence - non production models
2) concentrator systems - which means motorised arrays and cooling towers etc so very expensive for residential uses
Basically coming back to the fact that what is widely available and in use, is still within the 22% range.
This narrators enthusiasm is what I strive to have.
Today I learned that GAInASS is actually expensive to deal with
in Dutch, ga in, means go in
its true, its true
I heard Achieving GAinASS was a painful process😂
We know that you were laughing inside the whole time, noice
NOOICE.
ROIGHT
FOINE
Woild
Banana Bandana.
If I recall, efficiencies like these are Very impressive! Coal and biofuel loose a Ton of power, because the plants use a lot of the power themselves, weren’t effective at collecting all energy hitting them in the first place, and then even more energy is lost converting the material into a fuel we can use.
There's 2 things that are incredibly important to make this worth it, or any solar panels for that matter:
1. Can it be recycled?
2. What is the actual lifespan in typical uses?
The main benefit of having highly efficient panels is that we dont need to devote nearly as large areas of real estate to make sufficient quantities of production. But solar panels start losing their appeal if we have just having them clogging up landfills in 20-30 years.
1) Not at the moment.
2)degradation begins at approximately five years.
This can be as high as 50%buy year 12.
Thank you for your questions, we d be happy to answer any other questions.
I hope you do a video showing us how you make your videos what else do you use other than Blender?
I wanna know how is he doing the text, or he renders all the basic animations, keep the frames for a while and change it again upon giving new information
I thought this was SCP channel based on your logo
and was expecting totaly different SCP oriented content :D
To me it sounds just like the guy from Guga Foods/Sous vide everything
"Efficiency" starts with the house and appliances and the user.
Why are efficient chest freezers, vacuum panel insulation, LED lighting and passive heating/cooling NOT discussed? Marketing hype and profits
(no, "energy star" is not even close to best efficiency)
A smartly designed house (Michael Reynolds for example) just isn't legal in most cities.
We have DUMB Building Codes houses, yet park Smart Cars in them
The "tech" is fun, but its the USA bureaucracy that needs "Development"
yes, i went pure solar in 1998 when it was 7$/watt (no incentives/free money), with hyper efficiency 'everything' first...because i value Freedom (evidently, more than most people)
I need to get some of those GaInAs for my wife.
When talking efficiency, is that referring to the photons from a particular spectrum such as visible light or does the statement cover the entire spectrum?
ithink the entire spectrum
4:59
Please use the normal "m²" and not "SQM" in your future videos. Thank you ✌🏻
They mean the same thing.
@@carultch We know, it’s just easier to read
Nice video but a couple of questions come to mind. What is the degradation curve of these panels and what is the end life recyclability of these panels? There a lot of heavy metals mentioned.
I'd love to see a video on high efficiency solar cells that have the capability to be produced at a scale and cost to allow wide spread adoption and that are environmentally friendly at the end of their life.
The < 20% efficiency range for solar cells has been broken a long long time ago. As in (long long) 35 years ago. The reason why they're not in common use is because they are expensive as hell. Fit for use only with space applications where the cost is no barrier and the gain in out put is warranted. Like with the Mars rovers.
Sooooooooooooooo for application for civilian usage, the record has finally been broken. That, I think, was the fuckin point. Like, maybe now we wont have to see such wonderful panels shot off into space at the cost of billions, instead, we can just look at our roof, and feel pride in humanities accomplishments for the little guy.
Thanks for cleaing that up rick! the first few sentences sounds like BS and it was.
To say this has an application for private civilian use is true if such a person where on the Forbes list of richest.
Please link the paper like a decent human being, otherwise your words are meaningless and without backing!
You can make your channel an order of magnitude greater for people like me if you add sources in the video description.
many "faCTS" ARE SIMPLY WRONG, THUS NO SOURCES.
Tip: Put more numbers on the screen when making comparations so its easier to visualize the numbers
I didn’t get it.
Put two suns in the sky, twice the input energy half the efficiency or HIGHER EFFICIENCY?
two suns in the sky, twice the input energy, same efficiency.
This guy gets lt
You didn't change the nature of the solar cells, you get twice as much energy as before to begin with, so you end up with twice as much energy. This ain't rocket science yo. (oh yeah I'm also ignoring the fact that two suns in the sky would prolly kill us all anyway)
Two suns? Forget it, it doesn’t work ....
Max Loh
I get it. Two suns doubles the output for original efficiency.
PS. Even I don't know what I am talking about sometimes-
Subject zero science
Best caption ever.
...and what if you just pass it through a prism to separate out wavelengths into different types of panels?
You'd need a solar tracker for that.
@@michelangelobuonarroti916 Good point
That makes it a bit more difficult for a roof mounted solution.
I wonder how any extra efficiency and cost savings would compare to the extra power and financial cost of running the tracker for a solar farm 🤔...
... and weight and volume costs for space launch ...
also curious if the other "solar concentrator" solution required a tracker too?
It can work but you will lose about 1 or 2 percent of light in the prism and your total panel area will be larger than the area of the prism that the light is landing on which makes it totally space inefficient. So you will be trading capture efficiency for conversion efficiency
@@lugiarboy maybe going theough a concentrator lense on one axis first to reduce the area and then through the prism on opposite axis.
(Additional cost and mass for the tracker to pull but have to see how much cost reduction for from the panels themselves balances that out)
😉
then you have rainbows over the roof instead
Amazing achievement, one clarification - to state the efficiency record jumped from 22% to 39.7% is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. 22% would be in the silicon solar cell technology architecture. 39.7% is a 6-junction multi-junction solar cell, as you indicated, with many prior achievements in the multi-junction solar cell technology under AM1.5 global irradiance (excluding concentrator of AM0 irradiance). The NREL link indicates the historical progression of solar cell efficiency records across different types of solar cell architectures: www.nrel.gov/pv/cell-efficiency.html.
I do not trust their long term chemical stability silicon has a long term demonstrated reliability. We are not short of space for solar cells. Put them over highways shade for cars and electricity for cars no extra land used. I was shocked to see a field in Holland turned over to solar modules terrible idea.
David-Paul true. I don’t understand that either. The modern human seems to lack practicality. There are so many rational options. What I see is that Renewables in general need a makeover. Imagine what beautiful things would happen if nations threw their money together to hire the best PR-consultants instead of just burning their money while as a side effect reducing the acceptance of renewables. Imagine PR-consultants for once serving an important goal instead of just some greedy companies.
I assume solar degradation of cells occurs proportionately faster with concentrated solar applications, no?
Yes, or at least that's the case with older ones. There were concentrator panels made in the 80s (90s?) that had much higher output but they also had short lifespans. The fresnel lenses cooked the cells. Dunno about modern versions with that issue, but I bet it's still a problem. Maybe they have half the lifespan instead of 1/10 or something..?
Conversion efficiency better than plants? 🌱
GaInAs made my day, thank's for the video!
A third way of spelling aluminum/aluminium is now introduced: Alluminium 0:26
Literally the first thing I noticed
It will blow your mind when I tell you that in profession I work we call it "ali" or less common "alu". It is very rare to hear someone saying or even writing on official documentation the full word
Normal solar panels work much better in the cold, even with much less light. Our 305 W panels have hit 385 W output in Jan when it was -25 C with a wind. That translates to mid 30's %. In space it is near absolute zero on the back side so I would expect higher output and the big one, no clouds to weaken the sunlight. Higher efficiency panels at a reasonable cost would be fantastic for things like boats with limited areas to mount the panels.
8:25 there is a layer of simethicone
When accidentally the sun shines and the panels are mounted in exactly the perfect angle to the sun which is for most fixed panels only a few minutes a day ...... and for a max of about 5 years before the efficiency declines rapidly ....... a waste of space, money and effort except for some remote location applications ! 78 million toms of solar panels are rotting away on garbage dumps in the US alone right now as we speak ...... i.e. an ecological disaster of epic proportions !
What about separating the frequencies by diffraction grating and holographic lens and positioning the appropriate material for each band gap at the appropriate location rather than multi-layer. The area increases but fabrication may be cheaper. The holographic lens can keep the proper cells illuminated as the Sun moves I think. It may allow many more material types to be involved, perhaps increasing overall efficiency. This may be more appropriate for concentraror systems on reflection.
I believe in terms of future potential, a multilayered one is more efficient, as no energy is lost to the refraction of the frequencies, but right now i sounds like a really interesting idea
yeah man what he said
@@mvvo7366 😂😂😂
Increasing the area cancels out the benefits though, might as well just have an equivalent area multi-layer cell.
Solar panels generally are about getting W/m^2 you may increase the efficiency but the area you have is increased by N where N is the number of different materials. You'd have to use a concentrator before your grating so all the light that would hit your larger area passes through a much smaller grating and disperses the light over your larger area. Otherwise you are wasting massive amounts of energy, as @Himanshu Goel mentions without the concentrator you'd cancel out your advantages.
I've put 600w of solar panels and a 3.3kw lifepo4 battery in my RV. Best money I've ever spent.
It's like a little generator that never needs gas for 20 years!
Cool for space applications, but I'm really interested in $/watt.
Absolutely!
Currently under 5 cents per watt.
A 300wp panel is 70 buck from the factory.
Solar is becomming really cheap. Commercial solar farms are delivering energy for under 2 cents per kwh now.
And ready and wide availability.
Give the technology to the Chinese
But solar still will not be affordable. Solar will remain not monetarily efficient. Remember when they said getting 20% efficient would make it affordable.
47% in efficiency? Omfg if this method become in large scale we could get a super revolution in solar energy output. It's unprecedent! Thank you a Lot to bring this content!
P.s.: idk How people dislike this kind of content, omg
Not necessarily. The biggest cost these days isn't the panels, it's the other hardware that converts it into usable electricity. For most users, space for more cheaper panels, even if they're less efficient, is not a problem.
Man I absolutely can't wait! Hopefully will happen in the next few years
"Ideal to replace the panels on the ISS"
Are we talking about the same ISS that is being decommissioned in 4 years?
Let's do it anyway.
@Kristian La Vigne I'd like to see proof backing that up...
@Kristian La Vigne Sure, never trust media, but trust some random people on the web that don't provide clear sources, twist and ignore facts to proof a wrong point. Seems legit. The biggest problem is that conspiracy theories always say "think" but just want you to blindly believe.
Yeah, the ISS is CGI. That's why I can see it pass over my house.
@Kristian La Vigne You can see it though.
why are we still trying to make electricity from VISIBLE light? there is so much more energy in UV so why arent we making panels that are designed for this wavelength?
joseph dragojevich
I mean, if you find a material that reacts the same way to the higher frequencies, rock on with your bad self.
Solar panels need materials that have a specific electron shell configuration, and need to be able to withstand the abuses of environmental strains, so those two conditions limit your choices quite a bit.
Simplest answer is, yes it can be done. Designing solar cells targeted at harvesting only UV light is possible but that comes with different engineering challenges.
1: UV light has high energy but the amount of UV light actually reaching your cell is very little compared to the visible light spectrum due to both the nature of radiation spectrum from our sun and the scattering and absorption of UV light by our atmosphere. So cells designed for this purpose produce slightly higher voltages but insanely low electric currents. To make up for the low currents we need to get more UV light and doing so will require lenses, which puts the UV light capturing cell into the concentrator cell category where even higher efficiencies are already possible.
2: Targeting to capture UV light means the bandgap needs to be about 3 eV or more. if you take a look at the image on the right at 7:47 you can see that the highest bandgap in the cell is 2.1eV. This is the about the highest bandgap you can achieve using alloys of AlGaInPAs due to the possible lattice matching on a substrate of GaAs. To achieve 3 eV, you will be needing a different and more expensive substrate to maintain lattice matching. Silicon and GaAs substrates are much cheaper as they are commonly used in the semiconductor industry today and it will take a very big price drop for any other substrates to be used by the solar industry that is very price conscious.
3: Solar cells that can be bought today are also capable of capturing UV light, just that they are not able to make full use of the fact that UV light can produce higher voltages. That is why tandem cells exist and are the subject of so much research as explained in this video. Just designing more layers can allow you to make better use of the entire light spectrum shining on your solar cell but even more challenges exist. Current matching is one and diminishing returns with more layers is another. At some point adding more layers will be so expensive, it makes no sense to do so and just adding another solar cell beside it is a way cheaper option.
TLDR: Solar cells sold in stores are already using UV light, and designing a cell to capture only UV light greatly limits its uses to more expensive, carefully selected situations.
Theoretically, if solar panels were 100% efficient would they be even darker than vantablack when opened into a circuit?
They would need to absord all wavelenghts of light that are produced by the sun, so yes, it should not reflect any light at all.
Question is however is it possible to reach such efficiencies due to a lot of the energy being infrared which is heat. Heat decreases efficiency, so we would need a new design for the cells.
if they were 100 % efficient. that mean we can't see them
So dark that the object would be in visible.
its now 3 years since.... and its not in production yet? I guess its not that good anyway.
He says 39.2% in the intro but title says 39.7%
So which one is it?
I NEED TO KNOW!!!!
Well above 39% atleast
It raises by the GaInAs effect.
the 39.7% include a 0.5% sales tax. 🤓
@@quantumbubbles2106 Or relativistic effects from the photon's high speed
"Big Thanks to my patrons: Toyota AE86"
nice
When can we start buying these? This is a year old wire they’re not everywhere?
Dr. William Shockley was absolutely brilliant, working on modern RADAR, inventing the transistor, the semiconductor and the theory that became the solar panel (the Shockley-Queisser Limit was mentioned in this video). I would even go as far as to argue he was smarter than Einstein if you compare his life's work to Einstein's life's work.
Next video - How Scientists Silently and Discreetly Pass Gas in the Laboratory
39.2% or 39.7% ?
good question
Awesome Video With amazing graphics. You should do a behind the scenes or maybe even a quick workflow tutorial. I think the blender community could learn a lot from your excellent work.
Fact Checking in ur first 20ish seconds. 22% is just the high end of industry standard solar cells. It's not the record. The multi-junction solar cell record with concentrator was set in 2015 at around 44% and non-concentrator record was set in 2013 around 39%. But this is good news overall: solar cells of different designs have set new records in recent years. Please I love science and I know it may be confusing for those viewers who didn't study solar tech science, but since your video is very scientific, please be more technical or specific in how you phrase things. Your video title says 39.7% but in the video you say "a whopping 39.2%". Science articles NREL online says the newest record set by the 6 junction solar cell is 47.1%
Great stuff, as always 👌
Just wanted to comment on what you said at the end, about Solar panels being essential for Mars exploration.
Due to Mars' reduced Solar irradiance (about half that of Earth's) and dusty environment, Solar power becomes kind of a "meh" choice.
I think they'll try to go nuclear instead, as the main source of power, I mean.
Some of the problems with nuclear, though, is the weight. Having to ship equipment sufficiently effective and safe to provide nuclear power outside of Earth's orbit, is gonna cost a fortune in rocket launch expenses, might as well ship 5x as many solar panels instead. Solar is pretty light weight in comparison.
@@Real_MisterSir I dont know mango. I suspect 1MW nuclear reactor will weigh less than 1MW of solar panels
OTOH there are no water clouds, so the difference may be less than you think.
Aren't all three problems at 5:21 shared by single junction types? And I suspect milti-junc are better at point 2 and 3 than single junc? So please don't mention them in the context of "problems with muti junc"... it might be dangerous.
7:38 hell yeah barely paid science communicator!
Science: look at this wonderful advance.
Plants: Thomas had never seen such bs.
Aren't solar panels more efficienty than most plants?
IIRC, plants' efficiency is not that great... Like, we made artificial leaves a lot more effective than natural ones.
@@DunnickFayuro Ahh. so where are they being applied. My point is nature evolved it and we copy it. bragging about 30 something percent isn't all that fantastic considering how highly we think of ourselves.
@@DunnickFayuro I guess my secondary point is plants use the sun for life. We basically aren't interested if there is no profit, money dumped into research and devopment is based soley on profitability. We could be further along if we did it because it is the right thing. We would be further along if money were no option. So no, I am not impressed.
@@chorinu7609 Humans use the sun for life too. Nothing is possible any other way. (Appart maybe for some exotic chemical or radiation feeding bacteria)
Solar should be truly affordable for real, not just on paper.
Great vid! Keep up making those!
Nice video and animations!
I don't know if anyone have metioned this already, but at 1:40 you claim that a 3.8 kW system is next to impossible for buildings. I think you have made an error somewhere.
I have a 14 kWp Swedish system and only half the size of the average american roof (160 m2 vs 80 m2).
Just to let you know! :)
I think he means apartment buildings, with less roof area per dwelling unit.
I have 40 standard-size panels, 10kW total, on my house.
In the last twenty years there was every year a breakthrough in pv cell technology with record efficiency, yet we still have shitty cells.
Shitty cells, according to who?
That's markets for you. Why upgrade to the new while people will still pay for the same old subpar product?
Shitty? Possibly so. A least they have got significantly cheaper over the last twenty years.
I'm 61 years old. I would say that solar cells have improved dramatically in my lifetime.
But cells are much cheaper and better than 20 years ago.
For a moment I read 93.7% efficiency and about lost it.
*If we succeeded in raiding Area 51 we’d have 100% efficiency* -breaking the laws of physics bois-
if you raid the workshop there you might find overunity anti gravity propulsion systems that no longer need solar panels anymore
This video is a bit out of date, top of the line panels from 2017 did over 22% and around 221w/sq.m
Panel prices have also been under $200 shipped in the medium end since then. Now if you prices include installation, they are more realistic.
What panels did over 22%?
SPECTROLAB has been making 40%+ efficient multi junction solar cells for decades.
The results are very nice. Certainly a way forward. Still sometime untill we get it avaialbake commercially because MOVPE is still a very expensive process. 90+% precursor Gases still go to waste. One can't grow large solar cells, upscalabe I mean. Defects in epitaxial layer are still yet to be eliminated. At 7:59, in the TEM Cross-section I can see a lot of defects in the layers. As of yet the best one cud do.
90% of the stuff went over my head.
10% efficiency
@@mar504 yes indeed
As a research and developer, I love hearing and seeing new technologies discoveries. What I dislike is the discoveries developed in labs, universities and big corporations never seem to be commercially available. The best most people gets out from these “fabulous” discoveries are the seeds planted for more innovative technologies. In most cases, by time many of these discoveries become commercially available, the technology is obsolete. An example of this is Graphene, the miracle material. Discovered in 2004 by two scientist resulting in winning a Nobel Prize. To this day it has not been able to be economically commercialized in full sheets since it’s discovery in 2004. Oh, it’s a great material and I’m sure will be the a solution to many innovations. In the meantime.
Stated ''Efficiency'' accuracy depend on how close lab testing condition is to real world condition.
This is not true we have solar panels with 400W per m2 from sunpower. Also this has a World Record
Who is „we“?
Thanks for the insight
About the note, I -we- will wait for another year with this badass quality!
Ps: we would love to know how you animate your work :) pls a video explaining that!
When will we get them on Earth?
Good one!!
after the oil tycoons stop buying rights to these and shelving them off public light of day
Never. They are more complex and therefore much more expensive. Current panels are good because of how cheap they are.
Okay, Fidel: name ONE oil company that is sitting on some "rights" to prevent a solar technology from getting to market. Just ONE. You kids and your childish theories ....
@@fidelcatsro6948
Actually oil companies support solar. They have launched massive solar campaigns in the past because they know that for the other 18 hours you will need a natural gas turbine as a backup. The alternative energy source they actually oppose is nuclear. They have sponsored many anti-nuclear propaganda campaigns in the past, and apparently have played a large part in getting all those laws that make nuclear so slow passed, though I haven't see any 100% proof of this.
This is amazingly exciting news - a while away from scaling up, but nonetheless awesome. Thanks for sharing!
This was a very comprehensive explanation.
And I am compelled to commend the splendid graphics and how accurate they are. Great job with the animation too. Marvellous.
how about storage, that's the main thing. lot of free energy out there. but very little storage except when it's time to fill their pockets.
How does this man make his videos and why is he not one of the largest youtubers
Thanks for your video, it was REALLY interesting.....
It's also dirty business to mine all of these elements, manipulate them chemically to the shape/size desired and assemble them as needed to produce an efficient design.....Like everything else, there is a cost benefit, this also applies to batteries....The benefit being that the Life AND Production of the panel will offset the DIRTY Costs of other technologies, such as Fossil and Coal, for the production of Electricity.
A breakthrough that could be consumer viable as far as cost and efficiency is what is really needed in panel technology, in the same way and combined with the next revolution past Lithium Ion Batteries will finally make Solar / Batteries the mainstream power source.
Today, in the USA you can buy a 300 Watt decent quality Chinese Panel for about $200 with a 19-20% efficiency. If you are off-grid or if it is too costly to bring the lines to your property, Solar may be a great way to go. I would add a gas generator and/or a Wind Turbine, but you can CHEAPLY over-panel for those low light days if you live in a house with a yard.
Advancement in PV and all things electric need to be the top priority for all human effort right now.
Great stuff.
The ups needs to be upgraded as well. At the research Center I run, the ups runs on energy from the sun. It doesn't need extra power from mains to charge the battery at night. It has better load distribution technique. SJRTC, #21, RA rd., BLR, IN 560047.
This reminds me of buying the first personal computers, everybody waited for the next better device so they wouldn’t waste their money...it was changing so fast...
Lets get home fusion kits going...we have tabletop lab systems with great promise...maybe in 30 years...sorry had to say it.
Seems onemeasure to aborb more energy is not to reduce heat. But to collect it into a way that gains more electricity from the excited molecules and to usethat excitement to make electricity.
Similar to the way a microwave oven excites molecules to generate heat. If that movement of molecules could be regulated. You could exploit a previously understood annoyance. By flipping it into a viable energy source.
it was not very long ago, I was learning about the brand new OLED screens...
but they were only tiny, inch square things...
costly, tiny square things
Quanto custará cada módulo deste e qual a potência máxima em WH e sua voltagem (12/24/36/48vcc) aguardo resposta.
Am too old and too mis-educated to fully appreciate this, but I loved it and watched to the end.
You young engineers could use some practical knowledge about economics and law. Get your hands on a small old book called: Prosser on torts.
so if i have 100 watts = only 39% which is 39 watts only generate?
0:18, we know how this is effeciency, because the fastest car in the world is you patreon.
Nuclear energy is way wheaper and probably has less of an environmental impact than this per KwH of produced energy. Not mentioning the impossible batteries required to go carbon emission free without natural gas backup ofcourse.
Nuclear is much more expensive than solar plus batteries.
@@michelangelobuonarroti916 That is rapidly changing with minutarized nuclear reactors
@@michelangelobuonarroti916 A common misconception.
300USD per panel on the low end, that seems so high. In Norway with fairly high prices on everything you can get 320W 1m by 1,657m panel for 158USD including taxes.
Is there a goverment subsidy on them? Or can I just travel to Norway and buy them at large? :D
@@Sekir80 No, just normal VAT on them. It seems the person in the video has prices that don't necessarily represent current market prices accurately.
ABYSMAL performance from ABYSMAL technology. Please, sustainable efforts, move on from this rare earth mineral dependant tomfoolery
Any alternative?
Chandy Huang right now, nuclear
@@THESLlCK so what should the common household do?
Edit: changing the word "use" to "do"
Hahaha fun to know though
Hope this comes soon