The Most Effective Technology, on Average, Relative to its Own Peak Performance? (fixed position)

[Hedges]

For some reason I have had great difficulty in locating such websites, but perhaps this is my mistake, my search queries having focussed a lot on thin film, and not so much on traditional mono- and polycrystaline panels. In any case, if you have a link to any such site at your disposal, it will be appreciated

Solar Irradiance Calculator

www.solarelectricityhandbook.com

Certain Amorphous and/or thin film panels, though they are less efficient, are so more consistently throughout the day, whereas the efficiency og the traditional crystalline technologies very much depend on them being angled correctly, ideally perpendicularly to the sun, thus requiring automatic mechanical mechanisms to get the most out of them.

Perhaps that is simply because thin-film is too thin to have high probability of photon interaction, so many photons pass through.
Off angle, longer path through the thin film, increasing probability of interaction.

Single or polycrystalline wafers, 10 mil to 25 mil thick, interact with most all of the photons so don't get that improvement off-angle.

Large scale purification and processing of silicon now supports many GW per year of single crystal PV panels, and they are highly competitive price-wise. No longer just for when space is at a premium.

Take an old school thin film amorphous panel, with and efficiency of 7%. On average this will not reach these 7%, but will they come closer to that goal, than say a monocrystalline panel with a peak efficiency of 21% will come to those 21%, even under the best of conditions?

Also amorphous degrades faster.
Premium crystalline panels will still be producing 80% after 40 years.

I knew, or at least should've known and recalled much of this, but to simplify matters, am I to understand that the main focus in the hunt for the perfect technology should be not only effective use of UV, but just as, if not more importantly the blue part of the spectrum, or is the potential gain insignificant in comparison?

To use more parts of the spectrum, stack additional thin-film layers. Each layer should harvest higher energy photons, which would have interacted with the lower layers but lost their excess energy as heat. Lower energy photons pass through.

This might get you 35% or so efficiency. Might matter where space is a premium (like on space vehicles.)
As for the rest of us, we care more about W/$

I have read about the micro lenses at least, but only now comprehension has dawned on me, as I was somewhat mystified as to how this could improve anything, but naturally it is all about the angle. Check.

But it may not improve W/$ compared to silicon wafers, index-match epoxy to glass, anti-reflective coatings.

This answers, and by the way also all the others, vastly surpass any expectations I might have had, when first venturing into this forum. I really mean it when In say that my appreciation ends only due to the need for breathing, and other mundane necessities of life.

There are people here with much experience in energy, alternative energy, also experts in various technology.
Together with people just trying to save energy or money, or be comfortable in off-grid or van life.

 

[stienman]

I knew, or at least should've known and recalled much of this, but to simplify matters, am I to understand that the main focus in the hunt for the perfect technology should be not only effective use of UV, but just as, if not more importantly the blue part of the spectrum, or is the potential gain insignificant in comparison?

I see your point, however I do believe that the difference between the parts of the world where development has likely been focussed to be suitable for, as the potential gains are that much greater, and where I live in the Nordics, where large scale solar farming is perhaps not all that great of an investment, is somewhat significant.
53% infrared, which presumably is in terms og actual energy and not something else, like the number of photons, is a lot, but if this does not penetrate the clouds, haze and/or the additional atmosphere given the tilt of the earth and so on, the efficiency becomes irrelevant, be it 0 or 100%. As I understand it, this is exactly the main difference, whereas Ultra Violet plays a far greater role under such circumstances, in reality promoting those 4% to perhaps twice that and potentially a lot more.
You pretty much seem to confirm my interpretation, and yet conclude that it is not worth to technologies that are perhaps not as well development or have other drawback, even though they promise an absorption curve (?) more fitting the circumstances.
I'm not really sure that I'm misunderstanding here. Presumably I've missed or misinterpreted something important.

UV is also reduced by cloud cover. Cloud effects on UV is 15% to 45% lower than visible and IR.

So your thesis - that the UV radiation you experience is a significant portion of the energy that reaches you - doesn't bear out.

Let's assume the clouds are reducing the insolation by 90%. Let's further assume the best-case penetration for UV - 45% of the reduction experienced by the visible and IR wavelengths.

Cloudless, and ozone only interactions result in a 4%, 43%, 53% ratio.
IR and Visible experience a 90% loss.
UV experiences a 40.5% loss.
Post cloud output is then 2 UV, 4 visible, 5 IR.

So you're now seeing a 18% UV, 36% visible, 46% IR ratio.

Which may seem to favor UV more than under other circumstances, but if you choose a common panel using today's technology, you make use of 82% of the available energy. If you are able to find a panel that prefers UV and converts little IR, then your energy capture is 54%. That's a 34% reduction in efficiency. So rather than obtaining 27W you're only getting 18W out of panels that would normally get 300W in full direct sun. Except the UV preferring panel would do substantially worse - when today's panel is getting 288W in full sun, your UV preferring panel would get 141W.

And this is the best case, where the cloud hits visible and IR the hardest, and UV the least with a 45% difference. Most clouds reduce UV at a rate closer to visible and IR, with only a 20% difference, so the difference in total energy capture would be even more stark on a cloudy day, ignoring the huge 2X difference in full sun.

Might it not in the same way make sense to focus your energy on reliability when it come to solar, only instead of location on earth, location on the spectrum, where the the energy production is more reliable?

The point of my answer was that we are already doing that. The most efficient capture of solar energy hitting the ground at any point on earth will prioritize IR over UV. Your location and weather patterns aren't so unique as to change the equation substantially. Even if you do find and pay for UV preferring solar panels, you'll still be overall capturing less energy than with today's IR preferring panels.

Am I really to understand that it doesn't matter, at all, if I go for crystalline, mono or poly, silicon or or some obscure isotope of bismuth, Amorphous, thin film or whatever the various technologies are called, just as long as their efficiency rating is the same?

"At all" is a big ask. What I can tell you is that even if your thesis holds out, the best you can hope for is still a reduction in total conversion efficiency if you choose a panel that moves the curve closer to UV and away from IR.

But data collection is king. Get a light spectrum analyzer and figure out the energy available along the spectrum for your area on cloudy and sunny days, then find the wavelength efficiency curve for all the photovoltaic cell types, and find the one that will best match your actual insolation.

It is very likely going to be today's common solar panel, and not some specialized cell. You are on the surface of the same planet, and your location is simply not that different than everyone else's in terms of solar insolation.

 

[Hedges]

Multi-junction solar cell - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Everything is available - for a price.

Even today, you can choose to pay a larger electric bill (larger than we already pay in California, highest in continental US) in order to smugly say you are using 100% green, carbon neutral power.

Feel free to buy more efficient PV panels if it makes you feel better (to get less environmental benefit for a given amount of $$$)

 

[Mattb4]

...
A more apt phrasing would've been wasted potential production. You might compare it to and empty fridge. When empty, even when the power is off, it is, in a way, wasted potential.

...

There is tons of beautiful women in the world that are not dating me. Terrible waste in my eyes but the reality is just because a potential exists it does not imply waste if not taken advantage of.

Your empty fridge is simply a metal box not being used. It would only be a waste if you left food in it until the food spoiled and had to be tossed out.

 

[TIP]

Well, I guess that's it, for now.
I cannot put into words how valuable your input has been and how much I appreciate it.
I will return, at a later date, with more concrete and practical questions in relation to the subject (current researching hydrogen storage, which is apparently not an easy subject).


Thanks.