If someone offered you investment dollars to use for Solar R&D,

[GumboYaYa]

how would you use it? This is not just a rhetorical question. I started a company that has recently been offered significant amounts of capital to develop solar energy applications. We initially intended to focus on the back end of the solar panel, working to develop better circuitry, but at this point we have not invested the R&D money.

Where do you guys think the cash will be best employed?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. I have a suggestion (as a consumer) ... I have a question too

Afford-ability and durability! If we can make them cheaper, of course more people would install. the other problem is how soon they seem to break down. Most people have been turned off by that. Basic suggestions, I know but they seem to be the two things keeping people from considering solar.


Here's my question...
Our house has old solar panels on the roof that were used for hot water. When they went kaput the last owner installed a regular water heater, but the water is still routed through the old system! As a result you can turn the new heater all the way up but by the time the water gets to the tap it's not even hot enough to wash dishes. Freakin stupid waste of energy!

We need to have someone come in and fix this, but who?

Know of any good solar guys in Portland? I'd like them to look at the old equipment and see if any of it could be salvaged.

[skids]

13. Ask here.

Here's an organization in Portland that might have a directory of professionals:

http://www.greenempowerment.org/aboutus.htm

[Viva_La_Revolution]

26. Thanks!

[punpirate]

2. Need details on...

... "better circuitry."

PM me with some details and I'll try to answer as best as I can later.

Good for you, though, getting some cash to do some good.

[RufusEarl]

3. Long lasting batteries, for power storage.

I just read an article about hybrid cars, and one of the problem are the batteries. Seems the batteries only last @ seven years, and replace cost are @ $7000.

So factor in the price of the car + price of gas + price replacement batteries, and no real saving. Also disposing of batteries seem to be a problem.

I hope this helps, renewable fuels is something this country needs now!

[phantom power]

4. Pursue the R+D that most reduces the cost per watt.

[phantom power]

6. There is a particular R+D direction I'm interested in.

Certain classes of semiconductor have bandgaps that are tuneable across the visual spectrum, and allow for multi-layer cells that have very high converstion efficiencies. Whether or not these can be made into something that increases cost-effectiveness, I have no idea.

I maintain that your highest priority is to decrease cost/watt, however that can best be accomplished.

http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR2000/InGaAsN.htm

[GumboYaYa]

That's what I am thinking.

We are considering going the route of Amorphous SI with low cost reflectors attached to up the energy output at a lower cost. There is lots of research in both of these areas already so it is not revolutionary and we can easily license tat technology.

Our tech guys thing that the place to build unique technology is in storing and transmitting the electricity produced in a more efficient manner. To be honest, I do the finance work and leave the tech specifics to the experts, but I will hook you up with our engineers when their plans are more developed and able to be disclosed publicly.

Someone else commented on the Industrial Engineering focus. That is also an important aspect of the business plan. All of the big players (Shell, BOP, Sharp etc.) are telling us that they want someone who will bring lower costs products that incorporate solar technology into the marketplace to speed up consumer acceptance of the products. They want the Crystalline market to themselves, but are willing to support smaller players who will help develop the overall market.

Part of our business plan is to deveop a manufacturing and distribution network for solar products by developing novel products using solar technlogy that can be sold at low price points. We have a decorative flower that uses fiber optic lighting to light at night that goes into stores this Spring. It is selling like crazy in preorders now. We think there are other similar products waiting to be introduced that can help develop the market and fund more R&D on the types of products we really want to sell.

Thanks for all the great ideas.

[Ready4Change]

5. I've no technical expertise, but I'd want a better power/cost ratio.

Most people are short sighted.

Everytime I talk with people regarding solar power it tends to come down to dollars. They want to know how long it will be before the system pays for itself? They then look at the expected lifetime of the systems and the various components.

Currently, the systems are just paying for themselves before the end of their lifetimes. 10, 20 years down the line. So, potential buyers think to themselves "Gee, I go through all this effort, and in the end have nothing to show for it? Why not stay with my current systems. It will cost the same, and I'll expend less effort?"

Individuals must see that they will benefit from their efforts. And most don't see lessening their environmental footprint as a benefit. That's too removed from their direct comprehension. They want to see it in dollars.

Since most people move every 5-10 years, any radically different system must justify it's own expense within that period of time. Otherwise people won't make the effort.

If PV panels could pay for themselves in 5 years, and then provide 15 years free energy, or even paybacks from power companies, I'd think demand would skyrocket. But most PV panels take 10-15 years to pay for themselves and their needed systems. That's too long for mainstream potential buyers, imo.

[phantom power]

8. I suspect...

that it's counter-productive to chalk up concerns about payback time purely to being short-sighted. Most people in the world simply cannot afford to do things that will lose them money. As you point out, current PV technology rides right near the hairy edge of profitability. It's just not realistic to expect most people to adopt something like that.

There has to be some critical threshold of payback-time, below which a large number of people could justify this kind of technology. I'm guessing that threshold is around 5 years. There might be another threshold around 2-3 years.

[The Animator]

7. I seem to recall someone saying

That if battery technology had progress at the same rate as computer technology, we'd never have to worry about power again. The basics of batteries, however, remain relativley unchanged since their creation.

I know that solar cells themselves are expensive to create, I wonder if their are any modern composite materials that could be created more cheaply, and work more effectively.

I have often found this site to be very informative of such matters:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/solar-cell.htm

I hope it helps.

Good luck.

[skids]

10. Yes, there are, lots in fact.

See www.konarka.com for an example. There are a lot of companies working on upping the efficiencies of alternative PV technologies (CIGS, thin-film Si, organics, die-sensitized, quantum dots.)

[skids]

9. Solar thermal manufacturing.

There are loads of companies working on solar PV R&D and it would be very difficult to find a clear spot on the field to put your picnic blanket down. It would take a research project just to determine what to research. Personally I'd advocate you go for an industrial engineering approach and not a "pure science" approach, and perhaps look aside to other solar-electric technologies.

For example, it's silly that today solar thermal heating units cost about as much per-square-foot as a PV panel.

I would invest in a review of technology with an aim towards demonstrating the best bang-for-the-buck, answering questions like "when cost is the dominant factor and efficiency/area is secondary, which optimizations (vaccuum, low-iron glass, etc.) are worth it, and which are not?" and even "is a water working fuid system superior to an air working fluid system when full system costs and maintenence are taken into account?" Finally addressing what scale of manufacturing is needed to cut prices on them would be very interesting, and useful to any company looking to expand from a mom-and-pop to a serious endeavor.

Here's a study in the vein of what I'm advocating on the prospects for solar concentrators:

http://www.dti.gov.uk/renewables/publications/pdfs/SP200349.pdf

The same could be said for solar tracking units and heliostats, which, on the market, are overengineered and overpriced.

Use of recycled/salvage materials in the industry could also be an interesting angle.

...finally one area I might add which is neglected these days is thermoacoustic generators. They demonstrated a 30% conversion efficiency, equivalent to stirling engine solar thermoelectric systems, but noone as far as I can tell has put any real thought into commercializing them. They could potentially scale down farther than stirlings while still maintaining low manufacturing costs.

http://www.lanl.gov/projects/thermoacoustics/Pubs/

[phantom power]

11. Thermoacoustics may have some big action for refrigeration.

They are more efficient than the conventional "adiabatic coolant and pump" based refrigeration.

[GumboYaYa]

17. Recycled materials.....

I think that there is lots of room here for creative thinking. This is a big part of my plans, reduce costs and pollution by using recyled materials. I am looking at using recycled satllite dishes lined with a reflective surface to increase generating capacity at a lower cost.

[skids]

19. You should find that PDF above very interesting then.

They go through the potential feedstocks, eventually finding recycled acrylic with a mylar-like coating to be most promising.

Here are two companies in that space to keep an eye on:

http://energyinnovations.com/
http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au/

The former is a more serious big-budget company that claims they'll be shipping this year (but have been very silent lately.) The latter is a mom-and-pop, but is actually shipping product.

Also a product you should be aware of is daystar's refractive film concentrator for flat panels.

http://www.daystartech.com/concentrator.cfm

Daystar's primary focus is CIGS cells so I could see where that product might languish in their custody.

[phantom power]

20. Reflector-based concentrators for PV seem market-limited to me...

They aren't flat. For instance, I would be luke-warm at best to the idea of mounting parabolic reflectors on my roof. But flat panels, I would have no problem with.

Of course, residential roofs aren't the only market out there. Commercial buildings, with nice flat roofs, and fewer concerns with aesthetics, might be a significant market.

There's a company already pursuing this concept, on a somewhat larger scale (about 2 meters square?). Damned if I can remember the name of the company, somebody else probably does.

Ah, skids has it. Energy Innovations.

[GumboYaYa]

21. My thought was that for many people the dish is already an

accepted aesthetic on their house. I have seen the company usig the larger dishes. There are actually several out there. From our research, using reflective surfaces to increase the exposure to sunlight is an easy way to increase generating capacity. The technology is not very unique and any patents issued will probably be easily engineered around. If not, it can always be licensed.

[phantom power]

22. I'd say people are OK with *one* dish on their roof.

But how much power can you get from one? You'd need quite a few to obtain any useful amount of juice. I'd put one or two dishes on my house, but not 10 or 20 :-)

If I was a business owner buying them for the roof of my commercial building, that would be another matter entirely.

[GumboYaYa]

27. I'm thinking of the potential of an array set up on a

vertical, with a few dishes mounted. When I have more results on the generating capacity increase from using reflective dishes, I will share that with you.

Our goal is to end up with a smaller system that may not meet all of your energy needs but that is an easy inexpensive plug and go system that will help develop the market place for larger applications. We feel like there is a market of people who want to purchase systems to generate some of there electricity via solar, but who would not buy a full roof-top array. If we can help develop this market, it funds more R&D and helps gain market acceptance for slar products. I am convinced that the easier and cheaper we make it to have some solar power (if not all) the faster the market will develop.

[GumboYaYa]

18. I am also a big proponent of Solar THermal.

I provide heat for my home with solar thermal heaters built from recycled materials. It works great and the total costs of my system was around $100.

The R&D Dollars we have are earmarked for PV research projects, but I intend to develop solar thermal products as well.

[phantom power]

12. Here's a wacky idea...

To at least some degree, cell efficiency is governed by the pattern of "collecting" channels in the cell. That seems like an aspect of design that might be explored via genetic algorithms.

However, I don't know how much action there really is there. It may be that existing patterns are already known to be near-optimal, in which case it's not worth pursuing.

[skids]

14. There's actually some work being done on it.

Lost the URL but in addition to all the other nanotech solar research someone published a paper about how solar cell efficiencies could be much higher if the charge collector was composed of rods jutting far into the charge emitter, rather than just a flat or slightly bumpy junction surface.

[GumboYaYa]

15. If someone offered you investment dollars to use in solar R&D,

how would you use it? This is not just a rhetorical question. I started a company that has recently been offered significant amounts of capital to develop solar energy applications. We initially intended to focus on the back end of the solar panel, working to develop better circuitry, but at this point we have not invested the R&D money.

Where do you guys think the cash will be best employed?

[Gold Metal Flake]

16. Concentrators are the future of solar power.

I work for a company that produces GaAs solar cells for spaceflight. Our cell under concentration currently holds the world's record for efficiency. There are a number of companies working on concentrator arrays for private and public utility use, but this company has a very nice solution:

http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au/

One of the engineers sent me this:

"According to this picture, 8 Sun Balls would cost about $12k installed with inverter, would produce about 2.6kW and over their life produce power at about $0.08/kWh.

That’s using Spectrolab’s TJ solar cells.

Looks like we’re at break-even with coal and natural gas today ($0.08/kWh is about the average retail price for electricity)… and that’s without rebates or depletion allowances!





Where I think the R&D efforts should go is in the area of compact and efficient structures and tracking systems as well as lower cost inverters. An elegant home-based solution, packaged from soup to nuts and scalable, that could be marketed to regional installers as a sort of franchise would be something that should be considered.

The future of the PU market is large, but so is the private market which is subsidised by public money. The large PU arrays will not go forward very far until we can agree to dedicate a 100 square acres or so of desert for an large installation, but there are millions of yards and rooftops that can be utilized for SunBalls or whatever.

PM me if ya want.

[jpak]

23. I don't think you need to invest in solar R&D at all.

It's here - what's needed is the development of market demand for PV and solar thermal. You do that by a variety of incentives: rebates, tax credits etc., and by marketing.

Once the incentives are in place, demand will drive investment and the cost of PV and solar thermal will decline as the industry takes advantage of economies of scale.

This is exactly what Japan did (and is doing) with domestic PV - and it worked smashingly well.

Competition among PV manufacturers and PV system component producers will result in continued internal R&D to increase production efficiency and reduce product cost.

And that is what is happening in Japan as well.

Where I do think R&D dollars should be spent is on technology for grid management and energy storage.

When intermittent energy systems comprise ~25% of grid generating capacity, there will be problems with production/demand mismatches and diurnal/seasonal fluctuations in output.

There is going to be a need to communicate and coordinate with thousands of widely distributed individual generators (and electricity consumers), and to store and release energy on demand.

The technology for communication/coordination already exists, but you have to put this stuff together and make it work reliably (system architecture and hardware).

The basic technology for energy storage/release also already exists, but again you have to put the various components together and produce a system that utilities would buy.

I would put my money into developing reliable low-maintenance modular 1-10 MW integrated electrolyzer-fuel cell - low pressure H2 storage - Li ion battery UPS systems that could be located at wind farms or MW-scale PV arrays or distributed around the grid for load leveling.

If you used the 100 KW(?) fuel-cell from Honda's prototype H2 car, rigged up with Toyota's 100 kW (?) Li ion battery (for a UPS), a 100 kW Norsk Hydro high pressure electrolyzer, and a few high-volume low-pressure H2 storage tanks, you could put together a system that could be deployed at individual wind turbines or at commercial PV arrays (100-500 kW rooftops systems) without too much trouble..(in theory anyway)....

Once you have a desirable system, incentives would be required to drive demand and build economy of scales - and once that happens, Solar Nirvana will be attained.

:)

[skids]

24. Gumbo Ya Ya -- the food or the song?

Just wondering about your screen name -- a reference to the food, or to the the band "Torch Song"? Or something else?

[GumboYaYa]

25. The voodoo curse, that gave the song its name.

gris gris gumboyaya. Gumboyaya means everyone talking at once. It seemed to make sense for DU.