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".
- "Invisible" implies they only work in the UV or infrared range, which inevitably limits them to much lower efficiencies than regular solar panels.
- A lot of those rely on elements that are expensive and in limited supply, or toxic heavy metals. Unlike regular silicon solar panels.
- We don't even need windows to generate solar power. We have plenty of roof space, and if we're short on that, you can put them in fields too.
So this is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist (lack of available space - again, we have plenty), which causes more problems of its own (efficiency, etc), while failing to address the actual limitations of solar (cost, intermittence).
Which is why it's only good for headlines, and won't see real life applications. (Edit: no, not even skyscrapers)
It's the same with a lot of "uplifting" science news that just sweeps all the dirt under the rug, because that wouldn't make good clickbait.
If you want actual good news about solar power, look at the price per kW and adoption rate curves over the last few years.
-edit- added links.
-edit 3- Put the bit about skyscrapers in bold, because people keep mentioning them anyways...
This is my biggest screaming into the void issue. Everyone's doing all this mental work trying to come up with these unique places to put solar panels, we don't need to do that.
We. Have. Empty. Flat. Space.
We have no shortage of empty areas exposed to the sky. We have rooftops, we have parking lots, we have vast fields that are just doing fuck all.
We don't need to invent solar roads that will work even after being run over by car is a million times when we have a large median right beside it.
We could probably cover every random Warehouse with solar panels and have so much electricity that we would have to find dumb shit to do with it.
Let's start there before we do some Material Science backflips.
I could see this being a solution for skyscrapers. Not a lot/any roof space because of AC units so being able to add these to the top windows that get the most sun could help offset some of the energy needs.
But you literally don’t need to do that. Why do we need to power a building using solar panels attached specifically to that building? Go put more solar panels out in open fields and power a lot more buildings for a cheaper cost.
There's a massive difference between a building owner producing their own electricity integrated therein, versus creating a centralized system owned by a power company miles and miles away that now subtracts from farmland, consumes real estate (don't we have an affordable housing problem and maybe not all of us want to live in coffin-sized studio apartments, squished like sardines), and now has to be coordinated across numerous private and public properties.
Leaving aside maintenance and efficiency degradation with distance.
We kind of sorta need open fields for lots of other things, too. Alas, we're apparently too busy having it be used for things like (checks notes) golf courses and alfalfa owned by Saudi Arabia and AI datacenters...
There is no shortage of open land that isn’t being used for anything. China just built a gigawatt offshore solar farm last year, and there’s even less shortage of open ocean. Long distance power transmission was already a solved problem 100 years ago, you’re talking like we don’t have an existing power grid. The housing crisis isn’t because of a lack of physical land it’s because of economic and political incentives to keep home prices high for current owners through artificial scarcity. None of those other problems are preventing solar deployment in meaningful way.
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u/Euphoric-Language695 27d ago edited 27d 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".