Most powerful solar panel in history

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Get a bit tired of these headlines,  but at least it's something different to the hundreds of stories about pervoskite panels.

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/most-powerf...panel/788/

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To those following these technologies such breakthroughs in efficiencies are totally expected

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I think the technology looks sound to me, its more the time it takes with R&D to get a reliable product to the market.
Solar has the biggest potential for clean energy, especially with the likes of sodium ion batteries, that will be the real gamechanger IMHO.
Prices should drop dramatically once enough companies ramp up production.
Current solar panels are only 22% efficient at best and depending on the brand can perform very poorly on a cloudy day, so having more energy efficient solar panels is a huge breakthrough.
I think we have gained about an extra 5% efficiency improvement with current technology over the past 20 years, im sure we could be much further ahead had enough money been directed at this decades ago.
Funny how oil companies such as BP were doing solar for a bit and then pulled out of the market?

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Funny how oil companies such as BP were doing solar for a bit and then pulled out of the market?

I imported BP brand panels from the US 10 years ago to set up the system on our previous property. Only 215W rated panels which is pitiful compared to the 500W+ ones we have now. I think that like in EV (and battery) manufacture China has pretty much knocked other manufacture out of the park now which probably explains the apparent demise of BP and many others in this sector.

On a personal note we are looking like coming out of a credit balance with our electricity supplier for the first time since November as our PV has generated enough to charge both our EVs, run our home (including pumped water supply) and export more than enough to offset the power that we consume from the grid along with the daily supply charges. In effect our solar is making about $250/month benefit to our electricity costs so in effect the capex is equivalent to us having paid our electricity costs for the next 10 years forward based on ROI, and that's ignoring the certain electricity supply price increases that will occur in the next decade.

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Funny how oil companies such as BP were doing solar for a bit and then pulled out of the market?

I imported BP brand panels from the US 10 years ago to set up the system on our previous property. Only 215W rated panels which is pitiful compared to the 500W+ ones we have now. I think that like in EV (and battery) manufacture China has pretty much knocked other manufacture out of the park now which probably explains the apparent demise of BP and many others in this sector.

On a personal note we are looking like coming out of a credit balance with our electricity supplier for the first time since November as our PV has generated enough to charge both our EVs, run our home (including pumped water supply) and export more than enough to offset the power that we consume from the grid along with the daily supply charges. In effect our solar is making about $250/month benefit to our electricity costs so in effect the capex is equivalent to us having paid our electricity costs for the next 10 years forward based on ROI, and that's ignoring the certain electricity supply price increases that will occur in the next decade.

Yeah its funny looking back, I have an old dick smith catalogue and its quite funny looking at all the prices of these things.
Taking inflation into account, these things were expensive, like over $300 for a panel that was not even 200W
I see canon also had solar panels available, but they have since exited the market.
China is flooding the market right now with cheap panels at less than a dollar per watt.
BP at least had some foresight that they needed to diversify from oil and gas, but unfortunately it seems many oil companies, especially exon/mobil are going down the carbon capture path instead, i think most will just diversify into power generation as we are already seeing however.

Im looking at installing some on my garage roof, I could easily fit 5kw on my garage roof alone on the northwest facing side and about another 3.5kw on the north east side, that would significantly cut my power bill right down, i  dont use an awful amount of power currently, so i think that would be plenty.

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Im looking at installing some on my garage roof, I could easily fit 5kw on my garage roof alone on the northwest facing side and about another 3.5kw on the north east side, that would significantly cut my power bill right down, i  dont use an awful amount of power currently, so i think that would be plenty.

Sounds like a plan. a few things that come to mind are that the best return you can gain from home solar is for the electricity you consume from it instantaneously which offsets that which you would otherwise be importing. That ensures the value of that generation to you is essentially full retail including GST which is far higher than any FIT (Feed In Tariff) on offer. A battery system can be used to time shift your generation capacity across the day but the cost of batteries needs to be factored against any potential import reduction they can achieve. If you have a storage HWC a power diverter such as a NZ made Paladin can divert excess generation into hot water thereby using your HWC as a battery (energy storage device) for far less cost than a home battery.

Be aware that most lines companies in NZ have a 5kW/phase limit on the excess generation you can export which means that the system needs to monitor export levels and throttle back the inverter to ensure this maximum export. Having a PV system that is significantly greater than 5kW capacity is only viable if you can maintain a 'base load' of consumption that results in less than 5kW of 'excess'. Having a split panel set-up with morning and afternoon aspects can also address the export cap by ensuring that the whole capacity of your solar isn't generating at any given time.

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Im looking at installing some on my garage roof, I could easily fit 5kw on my garage roof alone on the northwest facing side and about another 3.5kw on the north east side, that would significantly cut my power bill right down, i  dont use an awful amount of power currently, so i think that would be plenty.

Sounds like a plan. a few things that come to mind are that the best return you can gain from home solar is for the electricity you consume from it instantaneously which offsets that which you would otherwise be importing. That ensures the value of that generation to you is essentially full retail including GST which is far higher than any FIT (Feed In Tariff) on offer. A battery system can be used to time shift your generation capacity across the day but the cost of batteries needs to be factored against any potential import reduction they can achieve. If you have a storage HWC a power diverter such as a NZ made Paladin can divert excess generation into hot water thereby using your HWC as a battery (energy storage device) for far less cost than a home battery.

Be aware that most lines companies in NZ have a 5kW/phase limit on the excess generation you can export which means that the system needs to monitor export levels and throttle back the inverter to ensure this maximum export. Having a PV system that is significantly greater than 5kW capacity is only viable if you can maintain a 'base load' of consumption that results in less than 5kW of 'excess'. Having a split panel set-up with morning and afternoon aspects can also address the export cap by ensuring that the whole capacity of your solar isn't generating at any given time.

I don't think i would be anywhere near the phase limit to be concerned. 
My main usage that I would need to top off the grid from would be hot water i expect, everything else would be lighting, fridge and TV, computers etc which is not a huge amount.
I get alot of cheap 18650 batteries and I see there is a guy who is using an open source kit to build battery banks with the things, not sure how reliable it is, but it's dirt cheap could be an option.
I've got a friend who is using a Nissan leaf battery, the BMS has finally been hacked and the code made open source.
Looks like a bit of fun.