2023 Solar Glass Breakthrough: Driving A New Era of Sustainability — Ultra Unlimited
www.ultra-unlimited.com
The global solar industry has made tremendous strides but faces ongoing challenges to fully realize its potential. This report analyzes recent innovations in solar photovoltaic manufacturing and technologies like solar glass that integrates PV seamlessly into buildings.
  • SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz
    4·
    1 year ago

    Pretty pictures, but the standard reminders for putting solar in stupid places weren’t addressed, and still apply:

    • Solar panel manufacturing, financing, and installation remain the bottlenecks. We therefore need to make the most of every panel/kW installed, not just install more.

    • Panels therefore need to be installed where they get the maximum sunlight possible: no shade, up high, facing mostly upwards with preferably a slight tilt towards the equator. Vertical is bad unless you’re in the arctic.

    • There remains no shortage of uncovered roofspace. A given m² of panel is going to produce much more energy on a half decent roof than anywhere else except a tracking array.

    • Even if you somehow manage to run out of roof, building more roof (e.g. covering parking lots) is going to be better in every way than trying to squeeze the panels into other stupid places.

    • Very dense areas full of skyscrapers don’t really have parking lots - but the windows aren’t really going to do any better; they’ll be shaded 75% of the time. We want windows on large buildings to be shaded; it decreases solar heat gain and therefore aircon loads.