Sunflare Thin Film Solar Panels
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Interesting. Now to see if the sales track matches the engineering track 
Cruiserdrew
On the way there
Yeah-You could read it as-we made our silicon wafers thinner and more fragile and glued them to a less durable membrane.
Hardly world changing.
But, Maybe some competition will bring down PowerFilm costs, and those are nice robust flexible panels, and less susceptible to shaded areas on the panel.
Hardly world changing.
But, Maybe some competition will bring down PowerFilm costs, and those are nice robust flexible panels, and less susceptible to shaded areas on the panel.
well, CIGS cells are not silicon wafers, they are thin films and can be quite flexible when deposited thin enough on suitable substrates. They use SS here it seems. Their efficiency is surprisingly good in general too. Don't know about these particular ones, but flexible cells with high efficiency while cheap and still durable would be a big deal for the industry I think.
Bogo
FOOF
I'd like to see some actual numbers. I know awhile back some company was claiming they had 24% efficient thin film solar cells, but they weren't to market yet.
Cruiserdrew
On the way there
Wiki for sure says promising, but it's early in the game:
Copper indium gallium selenide solar cells
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CIGS cell on a flexible plastic backing. Other architectures use rigid CIGS panels sandwiched between two panes of glass.
A copper indium gallium selenide solar cell (or CIGS cell, sometimes CI(G)S or CIS cell) is a thin-film solar cell used to convert sunlight into electric power. It is manufactured by depositing a thin layer of copper, indium, gallium and selenide on glass or plastic backing, along with electrodes on the front and back to collect current. Because the material has a high absorption coefficient and strongly absorbs sunlight, a much thinner film is required than of other semiconductor materials.
CIGS is one of three mainstream thin-film PV technologies, the other two being cadmium telluride and amorphous silicon. Like these materials, CIGS layers are thin enough to be flexible, allowing them to be deposited on flexible substrates. However, as all of these technologies normally use high-temperature deposition techniques, the best performance normally comes from cells deposited on glass. Even then the performance is marginal compared to modern polysilicon-based panels. Advances in low-temperature deposition of CIGS cells have erased much of this performance difference.
Thin-film market share is stagnated at around 15 percent, leaving the rest of the PV market to conventional solar cells made of crystalline silicon. In 2013, the market share of CIGS alone was about 2 percent and all thin-film technologies combined fell below 10 percent.[1] CIGS cells continue being developed, as they promise to reach silicon-like efficiencies, while maintaining their low costs, as is typical for thin-film technology.[2] Prominent manufacturers of CIGS photovoltaics were the now-bankrupt companies Nanosolar and Solyndra. Current market leader is the Japanese company Solar Frontier, producing solar modules free of any heavy metals such as cadmium or lead.[3]
Copper indium gallium selenide solar cells
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CIGS cell on a flexible plastic backing. Other architectures use rigid CIGS panels sandwiched between two panes of glass.
A copper indium gallium selenide solar cell (or CIGS cell, sometimes CI(G)S or CIS cell) is a thin-film solar cell used to convert sunlight into electric power. It is manufactured by depositing a thin layer of copper, indium, gallium and selenide on glass or plastic backing, along with electrodes on the front and back to collect current. Because the material has a high absorption coefficient and strongly absorbs sunlight, a much thinner film is required than of other semiconductor materials.
CIGS is one of three mainstream thin-film PV technologies, the other two being cadmium telluride and amorphous silicon. Like these materials, CIGS layers are thin enough to be flexible, allowing them to be deposited on flexible substrates. However, as all of these technologies normally use high-temperature deposition techniques, the best performance normally comes from cells deposited on glass. Even then the performance is marginal compared to modern polysilicon-based panels. Advances in low-temperature deposition of CIGS cells have erased much of this performance difference.
Thin-film market share is stagnated at around 15 percent, leaving the rest of the PV market to conventional solar cells made of crystalline silicon. In 2013, the market share of CIGS alone was about 2 percent and all thin-film technologies combined fell below 10 percent.[1] CIGS cells continue being developed, as they promise to reach silicon-like efficiencies, while maintaining their low costs, as is typical for thin-film technology.[2] Prominent manufacturers of CIGS photovoltaics were the now-bankrupt companies Nanosolar and Solyndra. Current market leader is the Japanese company Solar Frontier, producing solar modules free of any heavy metals such as cadmium or lead.[3]
Has this changed yet? Is anyone actually producing TF solutions with improved efficiency to make it more viable? Solar-Frontier is talking about 13.8% efficiency in “real-world” use, but they aren’t flexible.
I wouldn’t mount a thick rigid-panel to my hood based on the appearance, but I would consider TF on a semi-flexible panel nice & flat to the hood. It’s only going to be for occasional camping to support a fridge. Otherwise, I’ll wait for a different solution.
P.s. I met a family this summer that was using a rigid panel on their Tundra for an overland trip to Alaska and back (with a newborn!) and their “system”, he said, was giving him notably improved gas mileage. I can’t seem to find their blog that was something like “average adventures of 3”, but I would like to do more research about this if anyone knows what they might have been using. I think he was from AZ.
I wouldn’t mount a thick rigid-panel to my hood based on the appearance, but I would consider TF on a semi-flexible panel nice & flat to the hood. It’s only going to be for occasional camping to support a fridge. Otherwise, I’ll wait for a different solution.
P.s. I met a family this summer that was using a rigid panel on their Tundra for an overland trip to Alaska and back (with a newborn!) and their “system”, he said, was giving him notably improved gas mileage. I can’t seem to find their blog that was something like “average adventures of 3”, but I would like to do more research about this if anyone knows what they might have been using. I think he was from AZ.
