The last I heard, printed solar panels have extremely low efficiency. Also being on plastic have a short life.
I wouldn't buy a flexible solar panel with 2 barge poles in series!
I am sure there is a place for them, but for vehicle use & or long life, not something I will buy.
TimTim said
08:33 PM May 31, 2023
Lacking lots of technical detail and if having been installed on the CHEP building in 2018 why are they looking for a 600m2 building to install another. Surely any size building over 600m2 would suffice and there are 100s of them in Newcastle.
Not even a phone number on their web site and I wonder what happened to the panels on the CHEP building.
-- Edited by TimTim on Wednesday 31st of May 2023 08:46:39 PM
I am only ever interested when I can actually purchase a product for an affordable price that performs substantially better than what we already have. There have been so many promises over the years.
9 full-time travelling years ago when we added 800W worth of solar panels and a 300Ah LFP battery we were warned of these far superior products under development that were just around the corner that would render everything old hat. I am still waiting for those 40% or even 25% efficient panels and half size batteries with twice the stored energy. At the rate we are progressing I guess that elusive corner is still a long way off but it will not be this year or the next.
We recently replaced a solar panel to experiment and added a 4 cell 280Ah LiFePO4 battery to the mix. The similar sized "Half Cut PERC" panel outputs little exra useful extra energy despite the rated output being "340W" compared to the existing 280W ones. There is at most 1 or 2% (400mA) improvement or about an extra 2 Ah but only on a good day. So much for the "latest technology" 9 years on. The new battery is a few kilograms lighter and perhaps 20% smaller in volume but it shows in the cell case construction sturdiness or should I say lack of it. A pure guess. Fractions of a mm aluminium vs 5mm hard plastic casing.
When buying new I guess those small gains all add up but don't expect miracles.
Warren-Pat_01 said
07:41 PM Jun 2, 2023
Oh dear, my past is coming back to haunt me!
Like Whenarewethere, I wouldn't be going anywhere near them - in Australia anyway. The supervisory system that was used on the GEC microwave system from Pt Pirie (SA) to Northam (WA) used "Bicca strips" to connect the shelf power, feeds to each alarm. It was a good concept but heat caused the two plastic strips to separate, causing shorts when the half shelf was pulled out for mtce, etc.
These solar "panels" look very much like overgrown Bicca strips - our temperatures would cause undesirable issues!
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/8214760/similar-to-a-chip-packet-flexible-hunter-printed-solar-attracts-global-interest/?cs=14706&dmplayersource=share-link
Is this the low cost solar panel answer ??
jaahn
The last I heard, printed solar panels have extremely low efficiency. Also being on plastic have a short life.
I wouldn't buy a flexible solar panel with 2 barge poles in series!
I am sure there is a place for them, but for vehicle use & or long life, not something I will buy.
Lacking lots of technical detail and if having been installed on the CHEP building in 2018 why are they looking for a 600m2 building to install another. Surely any size building over 600m2 would suffice and there are 100s of them in Newcastle.
Not even a phone number on their web site and I wonder what happened to the panels on the CHEP building.
-- Edited by TimTim on Wednesday 31st of May 2023 08:46:39 PM
I am only ever interested when I can actually purchase a product for an affordable price that performs substantially better than what we already have. There have been so many promises over the years.
9 full-time travelling years ago when we added 800W worth of solar panels and a 300Ah LFP battery we were warned of these far superior products under development that were just around the corner that would render everything old hat.
I am still waiting for those 40% or even 25% efficient panels and half size batteries with twice the stored energy. At the rate we are progressing I guess that elusive corner is still a long way off but it will not be this year or the next.
We recently replaced a solar panel to experiment and added a 4 cell 280Ah LiFePO4 battery to the mix. The similar sized "Half Cut PERC" panel outputs little exra useful extra energy despite the rated output being "340W" compared to the existing 280W ones. There is at most 1 or 2% (400mA) improvement or about an extra 2 Ah but only on a good day. So much for the "latest technology" 9 years on.
The new battery is a few kilograms lighter and perhaps 20% smaller in volume but it shows in the cell case construction sturdiness or should I say lack of it. A pure guess. Fractions of a mm aluminium vs 5mm hard plastic casing.
When buying new I guess those small gains all add up but don't expect miracles.
Like Whenarewethere, I wouldn't be going anywhere near them - in Australia anyway. The supervisory system that was used on the GEC microwave system from Pt Pirie (SA) to Northam (WA) used "Bicca strips" to connect the shelf power, feeds to each alarm. It was a good concept but heat caused the two plastic strips to separate, causing shorts when the half shelf was pulled out for mtce, etc.
These solar "panels" look very much like overgrown Bicca strips - our temperatures would cause undesirable issues!