The mid- and long-term future of photovoltaics

Sal Santamaura

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-crystal-years-key-solar-cell.html

hot_rod

Doubling the efficiency would be a huge step for PV. Does the raw material come from only the Ural Mountains

Sal Santamaura

hot_rod said:

...Does the raw material come from only the Ural Mountains

No, it's found in multiple places, including Arkansas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite

jumper

I wonder what percentage of a home's PV installation cost is from the solar panels themselves? All that electric gear; marketing; permitting; labor; and so on must add up.

Sal Santamaura

Another step that could increase distributed photovoltaic's viability:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gaf-energys-easy-install-solar-232854799.html

Hot_water_fan

Very little to be gained on the panel side for residential (utility too for that matter). Constraints on the transmission side of things are a big deal, the power itself is dirt cheap for utility scale. On residential, it's the businesses themselves. Looks like 500,000 households got solar installed last year so it's chugging along nicely, but a bit player when compared to the over 20 GW of utility scale solar installed in the US in 2021.

jumper

Biggest electric consumption in sunny places is air conditioning.
I see many people buying batteries for solar electricity storage.
But thermal storage will always be less expensive than batteries.
And will last longer. Indefinitely.
So I think that in long run photovoltaics will make ice. No stinking inverters.