alt Hacker NewsWhen panels are cheap what about vertical mounting? Less susceptible to hail and snow. And maybe placed north-south, to maximize production in morning and evening when it's needed most.
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The article seems to be mostly about grid scale solar. Of course an increasing amount is private or domestic solar installed on e.g. building roofs or wherever there is space.
When cost drops low enough, any surface with any exposure to sunlight is in scope for installing solar on if it can yield more energy than the cost of installing solar on it. It stops being about what is the most efficient and starts being about if the surface is good enough to provide a decent return on investment. Maximizing that ROI is complex but it boils down to getting more value out of the installation than goes in.
Solar doesn't even have to be in panel form. Some office buildings now have windows that double for solar generation. A thin transparent coating does the job. There are roof tiles that double as solar panels. Aptera makes electric cars with integrated solar panels. These are curved glass panels that are manufactured to fit the profile of the roof and hood. It's also possible to print organic solar cells directly on plastic rolls. No glass involved. Or panels. Those are less efficient but you can integrate them on all sorts of surfaces. A lot of that stuff is still emerging technology. But especially organic solar printed on plastic rolls could end up being very cheap to produce. And very light.
I’ve seen some YouTube videos of people making solar fences with bi-facial panels. If I recall correctly on the one I was watching, they were going for morning and evening production and faced them east/west. One side would get the morning light then the other the evening light.
(not sarcasm)
Yes ! Triple price of PV panels to buy "ceramic glass print" PV panel with eye pleasing pattern / stealthy photo on it and you can have facade or fence made from PV panels, there is drop in generated power from 10-50 % depended on pattern, color used.
Price per panel not price per install ! ! ! And subtract need to buy materials used for that purpose before.
Yep, but you're severely limited in terrain types. Unless you need the "fence" cover, I can't see it being worth it due the efficiency loss.
Balcony Solar is a thing, most of the panels will be vertical in that use case.
It’s mentioned in the article that sunlight from near the horizon passes through a lot more atmosphere, which attenuates the light so much that you might as well not bother with the panels.
North South is exactly opposite of what you need, the sun is never north
you also appear to get efficiency gains as vertical panels don’t get as hot - https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/11/10/researchers-shed-ligh...