Added: 3 years ago
From: sciencentral
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  • this came out 2 and a half years ago and i havnt heard anything about this stuff since

  • Imagine covering an entire building with this material. Enough energy to power the lights, equipment, A/C etc. Yeah good luck getting that past the electric company.

  • @jmccuen Bro my mate is a project manage who honoured in sustainable development. Were taking this idea on in Australia with our new carbon tax. It is the new way of the future with plenty of money to made going green.

  • Great product. Put in on sails of boats

  • Go for it John

  • The power companies will not allow solar to make a large impact without their hand in the profit, thats why solar hasnt caught on, wont either. Gotta do it on your own.

  • Excellent Technology ... until the Petroleum or Electrical Industry buys the company :(

  • Or if solar clear and transparent solar cell glass are used then more light can travel to behind and through the first stacked solar panel, because it is clear you can also make them thicker maybe up to a foot thick of solar cells window because light can travel to other solar cells if front cells are clear::Also If light(or electro enhanced light panels can put light in different places, directions for hidden solar cells in and out of corners and through tunnels can be usefull::

  • The 2 main questions now are:

    - What is the life expectancy? Because most people think they will last forever.

    - What effect does heat build-up have on the power output? From what I've heard, the efficiency goes down.

  • @Afrocanuk embed Thermocouples into to act as both a heat sink, and to generate more electric!

  • We are all concerned about the latest MP3 or IPhone. When will this come to market

  • @hotshot1987 what dus tht have to do with anything?

  • @SpankyNick: Solar power = good. Solar cells over everything in sight = annoying (almost bad). Transparent cells that can be placed all over the place (wherever glass goes and more) = better. Got it?

  • That's really nice!

  • @proverb311031 and u forgot that the gasses we create would build up in the dome thus killing us all lol like in Mexico... ya u seen whats happened those mountains are bastards!

    @VidsOfOurLabor You could just put into place sliding panels to release gasses, also you do always have to have them closed as well.

  • this is great for sustainable buildings

  • If they were suitable for 3D solar cells?

  • we could use this technology to build a dome over our country, while we benefit for sloar energy and hold out the gasses that would pollute our country.

  • there are a few flaws in your suggestion. first: hurricanes, tornados, and essentially weather. second: the migration of birds and flight would be affected. and lastly international flights.

  • That is an epic idea

  • @proverb311031 and u forgot that the gasses we create would build up in the dome thus killing us all lol like in mexico... ya u seen whats happened those mountains are bastards!

  • Why is it that after they develop the technology it will take about 50 years before it gets to the general public?

  • Cause thats about how long it takes for the resistors to all die away. Then the next generation makes it ubiquitous.

  • @md22mint lol so the big money interests that bought it can sell your all of their old shit still in inventory then also get you to pay for latests model when they release it finally.

  • production

  • That`s super cool!...

  • this is revolutionary

  • This could SOOO be used for mobile phones, like imagine you have that tape all over the phone, and monitor...Cool

  • Law of diminishing returns, r2dxhate. Far better one layer that is 100% absorbtive and converts 100% in one step.

  • I cant wait for these to start mass producing. Adding a whole bunch to the chevy volt car would increase the appeal of that vehicle

  • Genius.

  • This reporter has his facts wrong, Silicon is not the best material for the solar cell!!

  • To correct myself 'fact'.

  • didnt he just say that they found a better material anyway?

  • But, if efficiency is how many photons get absorbed and converted to electron movement, how can transparent be a good thing? I'd rather they try and find ways of making them more *OPAQUE* and getting those additional photons converted to electron movement! Come on, guys! Solar cells that are as dark as platinum black, woohoo!

  • so if they're transparent then cant u overlap them as many times as u want and make even more power? imagine having flexible transparent solar panels all over ur car or electric bicycle.

  • Silicon PV cells too only absorb small portion of the white light spectrum. The rest becomes heat of the cells, instead of electric energy, and gets wasted.

  • Which is why you layer stack them on top of eachother the cells which filter a specific wave type so that a single cell produces 85% more energy.

  • @RyuDarragh The hotter panels get the less effective they are so there's a trade-off

  • btw...how much this little piece give power?

  • sometimes i even wonder whether the people at science central have brains or not.

  • I agree, there will be a steep price to pay for this . Take a look at carbon fiber production it is old , yet still expensive to produce.

  • yea, BUT if they introduced these it would lower the prices of the older ones. Problem solved :)

  • agreed

  • yeah! I want about 12 square feet of them please.

  • This could be used so well if they keep at it, Though I can hardly see how they could be as efficent as traditional panels as of yet...

    Fair play to all the Scientists out there trying to bring benefit to society....

  • Project like these just never seem to make it in the end due to unresolved issues.

    Heres a few things to think about. 1. Price of materials vs PV Panels. 2. Life expectancy vs PV panels. 3. Availability vs. PV panels. 4. Difficulty in tying to your power source.

    As of now, the traditional PV Solar Panels are the best for best in the field. I've seen many different competitors, who all have draw backs. Since most installers work with PV, your going to get your best deal there.

  • An important idea here is they are "just as efficient" as silicon based panels. Thin films are not new, not as efficient, nor, yet truly affordable for mass markets. This will be a good niche application, with potential through higher efficiencies, as well.

  • 20 years, shit is going to be sooo different....

  • wow these scientist are so pro @_@

  • Nah, they are just thinking differently. The material for this was sitting in front of everyone else but they never bothered. -_-'

  • We need to improve the solar cell technology we have now so we can use it anywhere, espcially if is not combersome and expensive.

  • It's that "almost as efficient" and "transparent" the concern me. That says that visible light isn't what these cells are converting. I don'tknow about these scientists, but I sort of get the impression you want to absorb more photons to get better energy efficiency.. and when you absorb 100% of the incomming photons,... no more transparency! And I *do* mean converting absorbed photons into electrical energy, not just useless light absorbtion.

  • the guy said 'just as efficient'(at 1:10) not 'almost as efficint'.

  • It depends on what wavelength they are operating at. At IR wavelengths, they can be the same efficiencies, but at visible light wavelengths, that lack of absorption means much lower frequencies. If they were 100%, for instance, they be platinum black in appearance. Having seen ultrathin cells that can work from IR to green absorption, there's no way these are "just as" efficient.. misleading statement unless they tell you what conventional cell they compared them to...

  • @RyuDarragh maybe they mean "just as efficient" as in there's the same silicon-to-energy ratio. It won't generate as much, because it uses much less silicon (so thin that it's very transparent).

  • @MrProgrampro: It's all down to photon conversion efficiency. A perfect cell is opaque at all frequencies from the deep infrared through the short UV range. At one particular, or a narrow range, the transparent (a relative term) cells may be as efficient as the more opaque cells, but not as efficient as it could be.

  • astonishing

  • not astonishing, it just makes sense

  • I guess your lack of respect for real science is understandable considering you are a sociologist.

  • You're talking about emotions, not ration. Or you've got them mixed. Science is not like that

  • I am almost sure that they did this in Japan before. There was this documentary that I watched on a regular basis that showed how the Japanese scientist would create the tranparent solar cells in a type of glass, they could even choose the colour of the glass that they wanted. Not sure if the documentary was valid though.

  • Yeah, should make it a lot cheaper. Just need to mass produce it!

  • how much does it cost to make this new material? I can barely afford regular solar panels...

  • definitivamente con esto todo va a estar mucho mejor

  • This here is the right stuff. Not only will it enable home owners to place a plastic Solar Collector sheet on their south-facing windows and any tinted windows or skylights, but companies will be able to place these liners on the windows of their office buildings. Imagine the power a single office building whose south, east, and west sides are coated with these panels.

    And then there's NASA and the possibility of solar sails. This would make satellites so much lighter and cheaper.

  • this is awesome! im sure anyone can imagine the possibilities.

  • WoW, thats great :D

  • this made my day

  • Fantastic!

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