dye sensitised thin film

[skier-hughes]

Did anyone watch the piece on Working Lunch about this solar technology? Based in Cardif, seems quite good in theory, but they didn't give any firm details on costs involved apart from being much less than Silica based films.

http://www.g24i.com/

Graham

 

[Penners]

It's interesting how amazed the CBS reporter is by the idea of selling your home-generated power back to the grid.

Pity there's no reference to the output capabilities of the thin film technology.

Question: if every house in the UK was totally roofed in PV tiles, would we all be self-sufficient in power? In other words, is the average house roof a large enough area to hold sufficient PV panels to power an average household?

 

[alice]

Please feel free to correct my math, I'm not an engineer...but it looks like it would be possible to run a "typical American home (8900 kw hours/year)" with PV.

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/BoiLu.shtml

A General Electric PV panel (about 38" x 56", if I remember correctly)makes 200 watts at peak power.

Of course, the cost of the panels/installation etc and how it looks on the building are also a consideration.

alice

 

[biffvernon]

The problem is not so much the amount of sunshine, wind and tides but our ability to manufacture solar panels, wind turbines and tidal generators quickly enough to match the oil depletion rate.

 

[Penners]

Of course, the cost of the panels/installation etc and how it looks on the building are also a consideration.

But one that we may ultimately have no choice but to accept, if we want to have electricity in our lives.

 

[chuckey]

With PV we can get oundle of electrickery when the sun is out. The real problem either at an individual or national basis is how can we ecomonically store the energy generated in the summer and needed in the winter (and at night). At the moment, excess summer PV generated elctricity can be sold back to the generators, but as its a miniscule amount its has no real effect on the grid. Now if we were to generate a substantial amount , say 5% of the grids capacity, the generators would have to be switched off and on as cloudbursts swept across the country. This is a very expensive and not very practical idea. Wind power suffers from exactly the same problem. At least with tidal power the generators know how much and when the "free" electricity is going to be available. Our cheapest electricity is generated from generators that run 24/7, this is the base load. As the load on the grid increases above this extra generators are connected (but the electricity is more expensive) to cope with say the evening tea time. Finally there are generators that can start very quickly (like Dinorvic) to do "peak lopping".
What the powers that be should be investigating is the storage (and recovery!) of electrical power, that will allow all these green sources to be used effectively then they will be worth investing in. To invest substantialy in these sort of things now will only make the grid more unstable and conventionaly generated electricity more expensive.
P.S. if a power station has its steam already available, it takes 7 minutes to get the turbines up to a high enough temperature for them to be able to actually generate any power. Don't know what the boiler heating time is, there is a lot of metal work to get hot 1 hour? I believe a gas turbine (running on JP4) can generate within 3 seconds - but at a price!
Frank

 

[Mark]

/thread hijack

Backto the original Q: they've been talking about this technology for years - but I've never found a supplier.


You can cover your house in PV but as Frqank says you'll need a lot of batteries of a grid connect system.

there is a teacher in ?nottingham? with 20+K of PV on the roof recons to do very well.

I think the price needs to come down relative to oil/gas/leccy before people will 'invest' in any numbers

And I am so unconvinced by wind

 

[biffvernon]

And I am so unconvinced by wind

It's real enough, you should get out more.

 

[Moo]

Of course, the cost of the panels/installation etc and how it looks on the building are also a consideration.

But one that we may ultimately have no choice but to accept, if we want to have electricity in our lives.

There's an outraged letter-to-the-editor about this in today's Torygraph by a man who lives in an old thatched house. His HIPS report contained the recommendation that he should instal some sort of solar panels in the roof.

 

[biffvernon]

Perhaps he will find room for them around the croquet lawn or hang them on the tennis court fence. Where there's a will there's a way.

 

[Moo]

I've just re-read the letter and I'm afraid there's no clue as to the size/grandeur of either the house or the garden.

 

[Mark]

And I am so unconvinced by wind

It's real enough, you should get out more.

or eat more beans I suppose.

 

[chuckey]

Before I invested any of my cash in PV / wind turbines I would read this article :- http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=621&page=1#Item_0
Its a very good forum for green subjects.
Frank

 

[biffvernon]

Good in parts. :wink:

 

[alice]

I read of a scheme where (in the future) excess PV energy would be sent through a world wide grid from areas in sunlight to areas that were dark and as the world turned, would reverse. Possible in theory, I suppose. It's pretty sunny in Saudi Arabia, they could farm out PV electricity instead of oil. So much for energy independence.

 

[biffvernon]

That's a bit far-futuristic, but a European grid connect with Morocco is certainly a possibility in several years time.

 

[Penners]

I read of a scheme where (in the future) excess PV energy would be sent through a world wide grid from areas in sunlight to areas that were dark and as the world turned, would reverse. Possible in theory, I suppose. It's pretty sunny in Saudi Arabia, they could farm out PV electricity instead of oil. So much for energy independence.

That sounds pretty Isaac Asimov-ish.

 

[chuckey]

Alice its a jolly good idea, but we would also need an alternative site exactly opposite Saudi on the globe, otherwise all our electricity would disappear when its night time in Saudi unless we have our coal fired generators idling for 12 hours a day, so they are ready for the evening .
There are down falls, mainly transmission losses but also the PV elements would get sand blasted, so there would have to be some maintenance/replacement going on.
Frank

 

[alice]

Yeah, having a world wide grid that can share electricity and send it to where it's needed is pretty far in the future politically as well as a practical matter.

The US has grid interdependence with Canada and nothern Mexico. It would take a lot of political maneuvering to hook up with, say, China or Russia. But who knows...stranger things have happened.

 

[piper]

Being a Cambridge "alumnus", as they call us these days (grumpy-old-man hat on), I recently got the alumni e-bulletin they send out with lots of good-news links about the University's achievements. One of the news stories was this:
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk:80/news/dp/2007100501

On the face of it this is encouraging news (do we all rush to invest in the first company that uses this technology?) but PLASTIC istead of silicon??
Not very sustainable surely - or will it be entirely made from recycled drinks bottles? :? (On reflection, I'm not sure whether in fact this is the same idea as the Cardiff company are proposing to use in the very first post on this thread.)
Have the eco-scholars on this Forum any opinions?