New Solar Cells Offer the Chance to Print Out Solar Panels and Stick Them on Your Roof

DooKey

DooKey

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Australia is the site of the first commercial installation of solar cells that have been printed. These cells were printed using a wine label printer and 2000 square meters of them were installed by five people in one day. This is an amazing feat and this technology may be the one that brings affordable solar power to all home owners. It's super lightweight and is installed with traditional two-sided tape. I'm not sure of their efficiency or ability to withstand hail, but the ease of installation will definitely reduce costs once this is perfected. They claim it will be cost-competitive to traditional solar cells in the next 2 to 3 years. Check out the video of them making and installing the cells.

Watch the video here.

These printed solar modules could conceivably be installed onto any roof or structure using simple adhesive tape and connected to wires using simple press-studs. The new installation at Newcastle is an important milestone on the path towards commercialisation of the technology – we will spend the next six months testing its performance and durability before removing and recycling the materials.
 
Curious how they print semiconductor material onto plastic.

Some thoughts though
- Printed cells are nothing new, there was a company, Nanosolar, which did a lithograph technique that effectively printed cells sure this looks to be a different technique but the company was largely put out of business because Chinese companies flooded the market with below-cost panels, punishment was some tariffs for a few years or something minor though.
- How efficient are they? 640 meters of cells, how much power is that, yeah they may be cheap BUT total surface area is limited in many cases, not everyone has huge warehouse rooftops
- Just attach with double sided tape? I guess Australia doesn't get this weather phenomena called "wind" ? I can't imagine that is a long term solution at all, or even a short term solution
- How do they work? Are they all parallel? (probably not due to the thin nature) in which case if there's a wrinkle in the sheet it lowers the efficiency of the whole setup
- That last bit, you can lease them... seriously WTF. Leasing solar has always been one of those ventures that sounds promising because hey no initial investment! But leasing companies always try to make it competitive with the cost of local utilities because they're trying to make money too. If these things were really as cheap and easy to spit out like mentioned, and as easy to install as using tape! *laugh* then why not just sell them?
 
Double sided tape? Okay for the experiment sure. For many roofs it would have to be a tar like very resistant material at minimum. Yep.. how much power, and how resilient is this plastic film? 20y? 30y? More?
 
TFA mentioned efficiencies of 2~3%. If the tech proves out, I would expect efficiencies to rise.
The wind thing would be a problem in OK as well.

Could be a wonderful thing for installations that don't expect a long life. Print out a roll of cells. Lay them out at the site. When done, just roll them up again.
 
Won't that have to be protected by some kind of glass. Not real glass cause it could break. Sure what ever you have to protect it with will up the price a lot
 
"It's super lightweight and is installed with traditional two-sided tape.'
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That's a real nice solar installation you've got there. Would be a shame if ANY WIND AT ALL were to happen to it.

Especially on that particular roof going across the ridges like that instead of down the channels. I'm certain nothing at all could go wrong with providing as much surface area as is possible for the wind to get under those rolls.
 
Jaquile said:
That's a real nice solar installation you've got there. Would be a shame if ANY WIND AT ALL were to happen to it.

Especially on that particular roof going across the ridges like that instead of down the channels. I'm certain nothing at all could go wrong with providing as much surface area as is possible for the wind to get under those rolls.
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Even when panels are bolted down they don't fair so well. Hurricane in Puerto Rico destroyed this solar farm.

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Solar cells need to be 20% or more efficient to product usable energy. It would take a lot of these to get a usable current.
 
cyclone3d said:
I wasn't saying tape was a good idea. It is a horrible idea. Sure it may work for a few days... Until the heat from the sun destroys/melts the adhesive.

Just pointing out the silliness of comparing a slight wind to hurricane force wind.
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Well if they are remotely considering using tape to mount the panels, it wouldn't matter if it was a elephant fart or a hurricane. Either one blow the panels down the street. :D
 
Montu said:
not sure of their efficiency or ability to withstand hail, but the ease of installation will definitely reduce costs once this is perfected.
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I agree but either way damn cool progress. Been into 3d printing thing for about 5 years now and followed some developments. This is as close to mainstream yet. Thanks Montu for the story!
 
Solar needs to be more profitable and less expensive. Mass production with non rare materials is really the only way to do that. Wake me when we have solar panels using every day materials. Then you'll have something worth while.
 
Grimlaking said:
Solar needs to be more profitable and less expensive. Mass production with non rare materials is really the only way to do that. Wake me when we have solar panels using every day materials. Then you'll have something worth while.
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Thing is.. if you use "solar power", you don't actually have to convert the heat to electricity.

My grandparents had a solar water heater setup in Tucson, AZ. I don't remember a time when that water heater panel was not on the roof of the house.

The water in that heater gets pretty much boiling hot.
 
cyclone3d said:
Thing is.. if you use "solar power", you don't actually have to convert the heat to electricity.

My grandparents had a solar water heater setup in Tucson, AZ. I don't remember a time when that water heater panel was not on the roof of the house.

The water in that heater gets pretty much boiling hot.
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So true.. solar heating and cooling ever so old, ever so undeveloped.
 
solar is fairly cheap as is (~1.5 year roi @ 12cents a kwh) (this is just for the panels. 200w ebay panels use as reference. I personally run 3 of these on my truck and in good conditions they frequently beat 200w)) it becomes a excessively shitty investment as soon as everyone gets their hands in on the money and pushes the price to what consumers will pay.
 
Uvaman2 said:
Double sided tape? Okay for the experiment sure. For many roofs it would have to be a tar like very resistant material at minimum. Yep.. how much power, and how resilient is this plastic film? 20y? 30y? More?
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IDK, I'm thinking around 5 years, 10 for northern areas.
Greenhouse coverings last about 5 years in Florida, including the heaving duty tarps used in hurricane roof damage.
 
cyclone3d said:
My grandparents had a solar water heater setup in Tucson, AZ. I don't remember a time when that water heater panel was not on the roof of the house.
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But but but I live in the great white north where it snows 400 days a year, there are trees everywhere, I had to walk to school uphill in both directions, so if it doesn't work for me then no one should be able to use it!

(is often the mentality of alternative <anything> on this message board)
 
The Mad Atheist said:
IDK, I'm thinking around 5 years, 10 for northern areas.
Greenhouse coverings last about 5 years in Florida, including the heaving duty tarps used in hurricane roof damage.
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Eh, that's probably about right. With this product you can get creative if its truly cheap... Solar awnings.. solar patio furniture covers.. even make like fake palm tree type thing comes to mind .. but it has to be really really cheap for real.
 
Uvaman2 said:
Eh, that's probably about right. With this product you can get creative if its truly cheap... Solar awnings.. solar patio furniture covers.. even make like fake palm tree type thing comes to mind .. but it has to be really really cheap for real.
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Wonder how rollable the final product is, might be good for roll-up awnings for RVs. When rolled out they have at least 2-3x usable area of the roof.
 
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