this video is sponsored by charity stars commercial solar energy is experiencing a
boom as technology improves and prices continue to drop year after year but even today in 2022 a
lot of homeowners are still on the fence aging home infrastructure and high upfront costs are
a major deterrent for going solar so what if we could produce solar panels that were three
times lighter three times cheaper than today's traditional solar panels and what if we could make
them by using plain old industrial printers while this technology may sound too good to be true
it's actually in development right now thanks to professor paul to store in a team of researchers
at the university of newcastle in australia after over 15 years in the lab jester and his
team recently partnered with chep an australian shipping supply company as part of a pilot program
to test their ink printed solar panels in the real world the key innovation is a semi-conducting
liquid ink that can go inside a standard inkjet printer the liquid is then literally printed onto
the sheets of polyethylene one layer after another until the cells are about 200 microns thick three
times the thickness of a single strand of hair the cells then get a layer of aluminum before
they're laminated to protect them from damage the final product actually kind of looks like a
bag of potato chips it's possible that down the road the liquid itself could be applied to all
kinds of surfaces like roof tiles walls glass and even steel eventually these printed solar panels
could be embedded into buildings or windows but that's put in the car a little before the horse
this process makes these panels incredibly easy to produce with the university's small scale printers
which were originally used to make wine labels they're able to output hundreds of meters per day
upgrading to a commercial scale printer could increase output from meters to kilometers a day
one benefit of this insane production speed is that the cells can be made in large quantities
on demand this could have far reaching implications in terms of disaster response
and preparedness imagine during a natural disaster being able to supply hundreds of meters of solar
cells in a matter of hours the panels were also extremely lightweight about 300 times lighter
than traditional cells a typical solar panel can weigh up to 42 pounds and that's not even
including installation hardware this could make them an incredibly attractive feature for older
homes whose roofs might not be able to support the weight of traditional installations it's one thing
to have to consider the upfront cost of a solar installation but if you have to re-roof your home
first forget about it these printed panels are so light they can stick to just about any roof using
double-sided tape for the pilot program a system totaling 640 meters of material was installed by
a team of five in just one day and as an added bonus being made of over 99 pet materials the
panels were almost entirely recyclable a distinct advantage over traditional silicon panels but the
real question is how do these panels perform compared to traditional solar panels the first
thing to look at of course is energy efficiency of the sun's energy that hits these panels
how much is actually converted into electricity through the most commonly used solar panels are
monocrystalline silicon panels the hard truth is that even the most efficient panels operate only
at about 22 percent efficiency meaning that even sitting all day in direct sunlight less than a
quarter of that light gets converted into usable energy and that's sort of the best case scenario
most panels actually run somewhere between 15 and 20 percent efficiency now that's not meant to be
a knock on solar panels obviously we're all about that solar life but as we've covered on
this channel and many other videos one of the big challenges engineers face when it comes to solar
is increasing that efficiency so how do these printed panels stack up in terms of efficiency
well based on figures from the pilot program not great in fact it's pretty dismal maxing out at
around three percent efficiency what would that mean in terms of energy output let's look at a
typical panel with a surface area of two meters squared and yes size in this case does matter
but we'll explain why in a bit so let's say this panel running at between 50 and 20 efficiency
puts out about 330 watts if that panel gets eight hours of sunlight a day it will produce around 2.8
kilowatt hours per day a printed panel of the same size running at around three percent efficiency
and getting the same amount of sunlight would produce only about 20-30 watts which amounts to
between 0.16 and 0.24 kilowatt hours per day that means to generate the same amount of power you'd
need 10 to 15 times the amount of surface area but it doesn't stop there in terms of longevity
traditional panels can last well over 30 years right now these printed panels are only expected
to last between one and two years again not even close so case closed right these panels
are a dud if they don't last as long and they don't produce anywhere close to the same amount
of energy why even bother well now it's time to think like an engineer so while no the printed
solar panels can't even come close to competing with traditional panels in terms of efficiency
that's not the whole story i mean how cool would it be if you could print these out and put them on
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let's look back at the 330 watt panels from before right now the solar energy industries
association estimates the national average cost of a residential solar panel system is between 2.66
cents to 2.94 cents per watt but here in san diego where i live it's maybe closer to three dollars
per watt for the average homeowner to install a smaller solar system a 2.8 kilowatt system about
eight of these 330 watt panels would cost about eighty four hundred dollars before tax credits
so a single two square meter panel producing 330 watts to three dollars per watt would cost about
990 or 495 dollars per meter squared typically you don't measure panel cost or efficiency in
terms of surface area but since that's how the printed panels are made it's more of an
applicable metric so these numbers are really just approximations but stick with us now let's look at
the printed panels right now the developers are able to produce panels at less than 10 dollars
per square meter that means to produce a 2 meter square 10 to 15 watt panel would cost roughly 20
which comes out to only 75 cents per watt but ricky wouldn't you need to have 10 to 15 times the
amount of surface area to get the same amount of energy yes so what would that look like remember
we set to generate 2.8 kilowatts you would need eight traditional panels measuring about two
meters squared each taking up a total surface area of 16 meters squared the pilot system used about
640 total meters of printed solar panels connected to form a 200 square meter bank and the total cost
of the project about 2 000 this is where the technology could truly be competitive at scale
the price per watt is still significantly cheaper now of course there is still
one glaring problem could most residential roofs even support 200 square meters of solar panel area
and that's up for debate here in san diego the average home is about 2 400 square feet or about
240 square meters now the size of a roof will vary from house to house but generally speaking
the roof surface area is greater than your floor space area so a 240 meter squared floor plan will
have at least 240 meters of roof area if not more but the problem is not all of that area
is going to be facing the direction that you want for example in the northern hemisphere
you'd want the southern part of your roof the south facing part and that could easily cut the
amount of available roof area in half so might you have enough area for all of these printed panels
maybe so while these printed solar panels in their current form are significantly less efficient than
traditional panels they are exponentially cheaper and since they are so lightweight
and easy to apply requiring no racks or mounts you could theoretically outfit your entire roof
with panels for about a quarter of the price of a typical solar installation
and even if they may not be the perfect fit for every home they could certainly benefit
businesses whose buildings have huge amounts of roof area there is still one other major problem
though and that's how long these printed panels will last a lifetime of one or two years just
doesn't make sense for most applications because you gotta remember the biggest part about the cost
is typically labor and while these panels don't have all the racking and mounting that you would
need for traditional panels you do need somebody to go up there and replace them every two years
that will completely wipe out any savings you might have so really for this application and for
this technology to be even worth recommending or to get excited about i think the lifetimes need to
be up over five to ten years and the efficiency if they could double or triple that now we're cooking
but as it stands right now it's really more of a niche product for very specific applications now
we mentioned at the beginning that for emergencies this could really make sense if there was a
tornado or a hurricane and huge communities were without power imagine being able to roll these
out on top of roofs or even on the ground to produce energy in a pinch especially when you
have people in homes that need electricity for medical equipment and things it could be really
life-saving stuff but that lifespan is just too short for any real commercial application today
in my opinion but i really hope these guys keep at it and they can get these numbers up still dastur
and his team recognize the need to produce more efficient panels before hitting the market but
though development is still ongoing this step in commercial applications is major the team
currently estimates that australia could see these panels hitting the market in just two years over
the last decade or so we've seen solar not only get significantly more efficient but exponentially
cheaper and with this product already proven in the lab and making its way into actual real world
testing this might just be one of those future things that you should get excited about the team
is already exploring ways to make the technology even more efficient including experimenting with
perovskite materials an alternative to silicon that has the potential to significantly increase
solar efficiency we've actually already done a deep dive on perovskite solar
which we will link to here one final application you might be thinking about is if you could print
these panels and put them on cars that would be pretty cool but again that two-year lifespan is
the limiting factor so i really hope these guys can get that up to closer to five or ten years
and we can pretty much put solar on anything and if you're interested in learning more about the
emerging technology that can save you time money and energy consider subscribing to this channel as
always thank you so much for joining me i'm ricky tuba davinci and we'll catch you guys next week