Myles,
Went straight to the link to check it out and it seems pretty cool. Almost looks like they have laminated high eff. monocrystalline cells to get the semi-flexibility. Would like to know if it is amorphous and resistant to the partial shading issue that mono and poly crystaline have.
We literally just dropped the hook in Fort Walton Beach about a half hour ago after an 800 mile, two week passage from Merritt Island. We are here to attend the Powerup Energy Expo starting on Monday. They should have a little of everything at the exhibition and I will look around to see if anyone anything like this.
I've been hearing about something called "Nano" solar for a while now that is suppose to be very high eff. but havn't seen anything commercially available. I'm always a little skeptical about claims made by amorphous manufacturers because they have a reputation for not delivering on promises. Everybody gets all excited when they come out with a new product, then 5 years later it all starts going flat and they go out of business shortly after that. I've seen this cycle 3 times in the last 30 years. It's hard to beat monocrystalline, some of the original NASA stuff is still going strong after 50 years.
Carter
From: Myles Twete <matwete@comcast.net>
To: electricboats@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2013 10:18 PM
Subject: RE: [Electric Boats] Re: New member, new electric & solar powered motorboat
To: electricboats@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2013 10:18 PM
Subject: RE: [Electric Boats] Re: New member, new electric & solar powered motorboat
Carter offered:
And I'd also consider going with rigid framed monocrystalline solar panels. You typically get 3 times more power per unit area and amorphous has a bad habit of going soft over time. The manufacturer's have been claiming they've solved this problem for years and maybe they finally have but my experience is that after a few years the amorphous technology starts to degrade. I've got some old Sovonics panels that don't even work anymore. It's great technology when you have plenty of space, want to mount it on a curve or you're dealing with partial shading issues but you have non of this on your dream boat. With some 15% efficient mono panels you might be able to push that boat 3 mph on a sunny day strictly off solar. Not so much with 6-8% eff. flexible amorphous.
Good News Carter: There are now "semi-flexible" panel options that offer 20% efficiency (the formerly unobtainable Sunpower cells), super light weight (unframed) & relatively affordable (~$2.50/watt). Check this nom. ½ sq-meter, 100watt panel now on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Semi-Flexible-Bendable-100-Watt-Solar-Panel-12V-High-Efficiency-Sunpower-/130857773821?pt=Battery_Chargers&hash=item1e77bb2afd
While you can certainly get panels these days near the $1/watt cost target, with space limitations on boats, it may well be worthwhile to pay 2.5x for greater efficiency---and in this case, light weight, bendable, etc.
I'm tempted to start picking up the right size ones for my boat…
In case this helps-
-Myles
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