Home Made Solar Cell

[Leftyretro]

Have u heard about "Batteries"

Batteries are not 100% efficient in charging/discharging and are costly to buy and require replacement over time. Again Wind and Solar are at best an augmentation power source and not able to provide long term economical and reliable power.

As best I can tell the best use of solar is solar thermal plants where large arrays of mirrors focus heat on a heat exchanger using liquid sodium to generate steam to run steam turbine generators. The numbers look good for that and the thermal mass keeps some generation going through the night. However this doesn't scale down to small village or backyard type applications and works best in desert conditions.

Lefty

 

[maddog7]

If you live around water that can be a steady source of energy, and complemented with solar and wind can be fairly enough to get you off the grid.

 

[microtexan]

solar energy

Of course wind energy is cheaper than solar but they cannot be used everywhere but solar cells can be installed even on rooftop which makes it much more portable. Also windmill require specific landscape area where as solar energy is everywhere.........

solar energy is the future of alternate energy.....

How about at the higher latitudes with seasonally lonnnngggg nights.

 

[mahen]

How about at the higher latitudes with seasonally lonnnngggg nights.

Ohh sorry........i didn't knew that even penguins need electricity

 

[Mike_2545]

That would be polar bears not penguins. Higher latitudes are north. Penguins nest at the south pole.

 

[mahen]

That would be polar bears not penguins. Higher latitudes are north. Penguins nest at the south pole.

ohh.....iam not that good in geography...

 

[bryan1]

A few guys in the RE world have made thier own pv panels and said they worked great for awhile then moisture gets in and corrodes the cells. Not to mention trying to place wafer thin pv cells is like trying to hold a tissue flat in a gale force wind without it wavering in the wind.
<rant>
The way I see things baseload is basically power on demand where a generator somewhere needs to supply that power.

With RE power solar,wind,hydro etc provides power to a batterybank where if the bank is a decent size plenty of power will be available in the dark hours.

Also putting pv panels on a fixed permanant surface will provide the best output once a year. Even a simple pv tracker will increase the output by a better margin.

Now there was an incentive over here for people to get 1Kw of PV and sell back to the grid. One of my good mates convinced the govt to raise the buyback quota to 44c/kw. It really is a shame the mass's don't see the benefits of RE and the greater it can do in every aspect.

The reality in Oz is if we are going to get serious we need to intice all the homegrown companies to come back here after 99% of them have moved off shore for better pastures.

Now get this most of the mega/watt turbines we have here are designed in Norway and they shut down @ 35C. an Oz company made a mega/watt genny but couldn't get funding so they flew the coup and haven't been heard of since.
</rant>

Cheers Bryan

 

[duffy]

Polar bears already have solar cells.

**broken link removed**

 

[Hero999]

Batteries are not 100% efficient in charging/discharging and are costly to buy and require replacement over time.

Lead acid batteries certainly aren't 100% efficient, they're 80% efficient at most, 75% is more typical.

Li-ion batteries are nearly 100% efficient but they're very expensive and need special charging precautions and can't be trickle charged continuously.

 

[electronic spark]

fission, fusion, nuclear, whatever; that will not help you and me; they'll still charge you arm and a leg and your children and grandchildren will pay with both arms and legs.

by not using renewable sources, non polluting we are devastating their lives.

 

[electronic spark]

this is not the right forum..

 

[notauser]

In a way, wind power IS solar power.. Without the sun, the air would be pretty dead..