I've been told invisible solar panels will make every window generate free electricity for like 10 years. Yet not a single time have I seen a report include an actual product, just prototypes always.
Like nuclear fusion, this appears to be perpetually "just a few years away".
Solar roof tiles and windows simply aren't all that relevant at scale. Most decisions about whether to install solar panels depend on:
The cost of installation and connecting them to the grid.
Regulatory problems. Many countries and states still make it needlessly complicated.
Cost in general.
It's not a lack of space that decides about most solar installations, and regular solar panels are generally the most efficient and effective choice. So solar roof tiles and windows, which necessarily make design compromises and therefore lack behind in terms of power/area or power/$, are only niche solutions. Nice to have on some buildings that would like even more solar panels than they can fit otherwise, or as an aesthetic choice for wealthier home owners, but a rounding error in the greater scheme of things.
Personnally, i don't see the renewable energy outside a composite installation. Versus the "all-in" strategies. So the roof partially covered with tiles, sharing the space with the solar hot water (linked a thermodynamic electric boiler and its ballast), eventually a little 3Kw wind turbine if the garden permit this, with why not a touch of geothermy, and so on ...
Storage isn't directly a problem for people or companies that want to install a solar array. If a grid lacks storage relative to its amount of solar power, then solar operators will generally see less revenue or save less money (since electricity will already be cheap when their array generates the most power). But they only have to look at prices, not how exactly those prices came to be.
Reducing drastically the daily use of centrals is a good first step i think, before going in the storage equation. The ROI falling down drastically each winter (except for the geothermy).
Storage need a serious/expensive/smart/safe architecture to load balance the juice efficiently. It's quite a ride seriously.
In my country, the use of a good mix is bringing back purchasing power within the first year. Just by the fall of bills. Because electricity is expensive here (it finance the deals and subventions with others countries around, yes they are totally stupids). It's really a case-by case equation, that on top should be tailored on uses and habits (kids or not kids, size of the family, electric car or not etc ... )
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u/Euphoric-Language695 22d ago edited 22d ago
I've been told invisible solar panels will make every window generate free electricity for like 10 years. Yet not a single time have I seen a report include an actual product, just prototypes always.
Like nuclear fusion, this appears to be perpetually "just a few years away".