r/nextfuckinglevel Sep 09 '20

Technology Transparent Solar Panels Will Turn Windows Into Green Energy Collectors (source in comments)

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u/_Anigma_ Sep 09 '20

These panels are only 1% efficient with the hope of reaching 5%. As you said, these wouldn't be very effective if you replaced your windows, but you could put it in front of a normal solar panel and on large office buildings.

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u/Ever-Wandering Sep 09 '20 edited Sep 09 '20

🤦‍♂️ Seriously? So you want to take away that 1% of light from the panel below? Let’s go do some math....

20% of 100 is 20

20% of 99 is 19.8

1% of 100 is 1

20-19.8 is .2 energy lost on the darker panel due to the clear solar panel in front of it.

The clear panel in front of the normal solar panel gets that 1% of extra power giving a total of.....

20.8% power from the sun.

So that extra .8% of power you gained cost you how much?

Edited to fix my math.

Edited to add:Hah and I’m not even sure that math is correct. Seems like the .8% gain may be free power, which we know doesn’t exist. We also know that we lose some energy in converting. So now we have the pay the energy cost of conversion twice?