Spent £280 for 800w for my small boat 9 year ago. Thinking it was cheap so grab quick. Now half that for the same panels.
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Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 1 day agoOnly joking. We’re offgrid anyway, so unless they can figure out a tiny, cheap and quiet one I can buy off the shelf some time soon I will be solar for a while to come!
Panels have become ridiculously cheap per kwh. I was looking for some more recently and they had halved in price in the space of a few years while everything else has almost doubled.
I’d love to see more innovation in mechanical storage.
HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 1 day ago
It’s great isn’t it. The panels are getting denser as well which must be great for sailors. What sort of boat do you have?
HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 1 day ago
25ft narrowboat. If not in UK that is a 7ft wide boat/barge designed for our narrow canal system. My brother and I are both visually impaired so the longer ones are not really doable for us.
We spend the summers travelling the 2000 miles of canal network swapping over ever few weeks. I purchased the panals last year thinking they were as cheap as they were gonna get. But we are leaving the boat home to redo the interia over this and next summer. So they are filling my brother living room ATM. 1.7x1.qm each. So will cover most of the free roof of our little boat.
Honestly it’s a total guess. But the density of new panals is why I think the price has dropped. All the cheap panals are around 20% efficent but we know 25 of higher has been possible for a good while.
My guess is the price of making those has dropped to the point many chinese etc factories are planning to reequip. And they are selling of the glass 20% stuff while folks are looking.
Once 25% is the price these were 2 years ago. Commercial use will likely move over entirely. Can’t imagine the big factories wanting to be stuck on the larger panals then.
But it’s just a guess.
HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Yep most of it is dams and moving water ATM. And while that is efficient. It takes way more space then the UK can spare.
There has been a lot of work using heat storage of late. As we develop more materials etc. I can see this becoming more common. Will always have more loss then gravity. But is much more practice to multi use the land. And build on smaller scale. It is popular in factory situations where heat is often the energy needed. Generate during the day from solar or wind store in huge heat absorbing blocks and release on the night shift.
But use of land is the main problem with all natural renewables. Except maybe tidal. But even that has negative effects on land use. Wind turbines need space beyond the structure. While much can still be farmed. Farming land is also where they are best situated. Due to lack of nearby structures. Solar is a huge land hog. And moving it into our cities. Should happen but to be effective takes a complete redesign,
But the fact that a single car park structure exists that doesn’t have the roof covered. Show how little effort has been pushed. Open land car parks should do more. But effect on others light will be an issue. But if you own a building that just parks cars on the roof. It is insane that nothing has motivated you to build out solar over the last 40 years of climate change acceptance.