Solar Roadways get prototype funding from DOT — Autoblog Green
Now they just need to include induction loops...
Now they just need to include induction loops...
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For solar shoppers these days, the price is right. Panel prices have fallen about 40 percent since the middle of last year, driven down partly by an increase in the supply of a crucial ingredient for panels, according to analysts at the investment bank Piper Jaffray.
With 40% off and 30% from the feds and Solar companies doing loan programs, why am I still not hooked up?
Backed by lavish government support, the Chinese are preparing to build plants to assemble their products in the United States to bypass protectionist legislation. As Japanese automakers did decades ago, Chinese solar companies are encouraging their United States executives to join industry trade groups to tamp down anti-Chinese sentiment before it takes root.
It seems that the Chinese government is subsidizing its leading producers of photovoltaic solar panels so they can sell here for less than American-made panels.
How can we stop the Chinese government from helping its solar industry lower prices? Do we really want to? Ultimately, isn’t this good for American consumers because it will make solar panels more affordable? Isn’t it good for the environment because it will enable more homeowners to install solar systems?
The answer is yes -- and no.
...And there should be some stimulating competition within the solar shingle market. Another company, SRS Energy, has a curved shingle it calls the Solé Power Tile. I’m used to seeing Spanish-style tiles in red hues, but there is something uniquely attractive about them solar-panel blue. Here’s one view (much more at Inhabitat)...
Even if only a small percentage of the projects under development succeed, the growth rate is mind-boggling!
Solar panel efficiencies are starting to approach those of industrial power plants, except you can put these on your roof and fuel is "free." Very exciting ...Sharp Corporation has achieved the world's highest solar cell conversion efficiency (for non-concentrator solar cells) of 35.8% using a triple-junction compound solar cell.
Unlike silicon-based solar cells, the most common type of solar cell in use today, the compound solar cell utilizes photo-absorption layers made from compounds consisting of two or more elements such as indium and gallium.
Due to their high conversion efficiency, compound solar cells are used mainly on space satellites. Since 2000, Sharp has been advancing research and development on a triple-junction compound solar cell that achieves high conversion efficiency by stacking three photo-absorption layers.
A nice thought. Of course that isn't a useful efficiency comparison precisely because the "fuel" is free. For terrestrial applications, what really matters is the lifetime cost per kWh produced. That's what drives the market. (If solar ever got as cheap as coal, things would really get exciting.)Solar panel efficiencies are starting to approach those of industrial power plants, except you can put these on your roof and fuel is "free." Very exciting ...
The issue they're talking about is that Germanium (and Silicon for that matter, also a group IV semiconductor) has an indirect band gap. That means for photon-electron interaction, you also need phonons (quantized lattice vibrations). (This is why it's so hard to make efficient silicon LEDs.) Where as GaAs (and III-V materials based on it like InGaAs) have a direct band gap. This means less energy has to be lost to phonons, making the device more efficient.Conventionally, Ge (germanium) is used as the bottom layer due to its ease of manufacturing. However, in terms of performance, although Ge generates a large amount of current, the majority of the current is wasted, without being used effectively for electrical energy. The key to solving this problem was to form the bottom layer from InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide), a material with high light utilization efficiency. However, the process to make high-quality InGaAs with high crystallinity was difficult.
I wonder what that "proprietary technology" is. InGaAs is a very important material in photonics since you can tune the bandgap by adjusting how much Indium is replacing Gallium in the III-V crystal. Typically it has to be grown via MBE.Sharp has now succeeded in forming an InGaAs layer with high crystallinity by using its proprietary technology for forming layers.
...Due to their high conversion efficiency, compound solar cells are used mainly on space satellites. Since 2000, Sharp has been advancing research and development on a triple-junction compound solar cell that achieves high conversion efficiency by stacking three photo-absorption layers...
Numerically, the price (of panels) per Watt in $s is:
Sep 08: 4.85
Sep 09: 4.39, which is a 9.5% drop. Not sure how they came to that 40% figure.
Installed costs were also found to vary widely across states. Among systems completed in 2008 and less than 10 kW in size, average costs range from a low of $7.30/W in Arizona, followed by California, which had average installed costs of $8.20/W, to a high of $9.90/W in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
The study also found that the new construction market offers cost advantages for residential PV systems. Among small residential PV systems in California completed in 2008, those systems installed in residential new construction cost $0.80/W less than comparably-sized systems installed in rooftop retrofit applications.