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Week 7 [21.11-27.11] The future of solar energy

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Solar energy has been a really popular topic for a few past years. It is not surprising. Our ecosystem is in need. Air pollution is an important issue- especially in countries which use coal as the main resource of energy. One of these countries is- unsurprisingly Poland.


PM- Particulate Matter pollution of air
http://enfo.agt.bme.hu/drupal/en/node/10554

Another main reason which makes solar energy so popular are is falling price. The market is bigger, so prices fall. More and more house owners see that investing in solar panels (together with government subsidies) is profitable. But there is last thing: aesthetics.
www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/striking-chart-showing-solar-power-will-take-over-world.html


For sure everyone can say that solar panels ruin the architecture of houses. And here comes Tesla, which acquired SolarCity, with Solar Roof. Solar Roof is made of roof tiles, which look like regular tiles, but they have implemented a solar cell inside of each one. So the first great feature of solar roof is that it uses the whole roof for power generating instead of a small part of roof’s area, which is used on traditional roofs. To improve the effect of natural roof tile look, solar tiles are painted with paint, which passes through light while looking at them at +/- 90 degrees- the same angle as the shine of sunlight. While looking from the pavement- you are nearly unable to say if this roof is different in any way.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/tesla-motors-solarcity-deal-gets-145624683.html


Another important thing for house owners is strength. While regular glass could easily break while under hail- solar tiles are made of impact proof glass. (What a pity this glass is not used in our smartphones…) The problem is that sun isn’t available all day long. We need to store it somehow when we tend to have a power independent house. Together with Solar Tiles we can use Teslas’s PowerWall. PowerWall is a consumer available energy storage, which is really affordable (compared to other solutions) and eye friendly at the same time. Have a look at the pictures below and compare by yourself!







Sources:https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/solar-at-home/should-you-add-backup-batteries-to-your-grid-tied-solar-array/
http://www.sklep.soltechenergy.pl/pl/p/Tesla-Powerwall-7-kWh/137

So what do you think? Are you convinced? As a fan of green energy, I’m really interested in building an energy independent house. 
For more info take a look at the whole keynote:







Sources: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRqSkR4ENAg 
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/solar-at-home/should-you-add-backup-batteries-to-your-grid-tied-solar-array/ 
http://www.sklep.soltechenergy.pl/pl/p/Tesla-Powerwall-7-kWh/137 http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/striking-chart-showing-solar-power-will-take-over-world.html

Comments

Sylwia Pechcin said…
Wow, now I see that you really love Tesla :P
I'm not a fan of green energy, but I have to admit that this roof looks good. To be honest, the most of eco houses looks very very bad because of the great solar panels on the roof. Here we can see not only a good design but also a great usage of the whole area of the roof. I'm impressed.
21 November 2016 at 20:42
kondrat said…
Yeah, I'm a fan, but not specifically of Tesla- I'm rather fan of great products and companies which are pushing human kind forward to use new technologies. That's the only way we can become interplanetary specie :) Looking forward for SpaceX's Mars trip :)
21 November 2016 at 23:42
Unknown said…
In my opinion it is a great idea. If I build house in future I will remember about these panels. I read lately an article about a Polish woman who created spcial cristal which works like battery and you can cover everything with it because you can't see it. For example you can cover the whole car and all windows with this cristal. Just think if this idea is developed we will cover all buidings with this cristal. With this idea we will have enought energy only from the sun.
22 November 2016 at 12:51
Unknown said…
Sometime ago I was checking prices of solar eergy panels for houses, because we were interested - it is better for evniorment, but also it will also decrease costs of energy. It's nice to read that it is chaper, so more affordable for eveyone interested :)
23 November 2016 at 16:25
kondrat said…
Haven't heard about that- I'll check this out!
23 November 2016 at 16:42
kondrat said…
IMO price is the biggest drawback, which prevents consumers from investing into solar technology on big scale. Hoping it will be available for every consumer building a house in Poland :)
23 November 2016 at 16:43
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
I was watching the keynote when Elon Musk presented these solar panels, it's just amazing how Tesla tries to turn electric cars and solar panels into a regular thing, currently it's a thing for geeks.

Making houses energy-independent is a great idea, recently Musk stated that these panels will cost less than regular roof tiles.
23 November 2016 at 22:03
Łukasz Domeradzki said…
Eco energy is truly great, and I'm always happy to read about latest technological improvements in this field, so thanks for a nice article!

Sadly, my opinion about solar panels isn't that great - the actual efficiency, and therefore, also power/price ratio, highly depends on where you put the solar panel, and it depends so much that in many places it's simply entirely ineffective to use those. Poland is one of rather worse countries, at least from what I heard and checked myself, as solar panels are not as effective as they could be, which makes them less popular as a form of eco energy.

There are however other nice alternatives, so it's not like we can't do anything :).
23 November 2016 at 22:25
Unknown said…
Well it surely looks nice on paper, but what about production? As far as I know solar panels are not as "green" as industry and greenpeace tries to present them. I've read that they are produced from rare earth elemnts, so their development might be hard on larger scale. If Tesla will find way to create them, for example from carbon, that would be something! But as for it is good that they are trying, and making it looks nice (both roof tiles and storage elements) since it is also important aspect of every product.
23 November 2016 at 22:42
kondrat said…
They are brave enough to push technology forward, I love it ;)
24 November 2016 at 21:46
kondrat said…
When installing few panels- let say each one is about 1 m^2, then it can be not cos effective. However when whole roof is a solar panel, it can be really profitable- i would give it a chance. :)
24 November 2016 at 21:48
kondrat said…
I think it is the part of their business plan. Same thing with batteries- our planet's production of Li-Po batterries is too small to satisfy production of Tesla's Model 3 car, so.. they are doubling it by building GigaFactory!
24 November 2016 at 21:51
Unknown said…
Solar energy has the benefit of being produced at the moment when we use it the most: during daytime. At the same time, we also want to be able to use solar energy during the dark hours. And from a more technical perspective, we need to avoid high peaks on the energy grid on very sunny (and windy) days. Reliable and affordable energy storage solutions help with this, and are therefore key to making a success of solar energy.
In most places on Earth, sunlight isn't always available. Some of the variations in available solar energy are predictable or deterministic (e.g., diurnal and seasonal cycles and local climate), while others are unpredictable or stochastic (e.g., cloud cover and weather).

To be honest, at the moment i am not really convinced to solar energy.
25 November 2016 at 10:08
Unknown said…
I'm not sure if it's true, but I heard there is one kind of solar panels which produce energy despite of clouds (using some kind of daily light, not a sun). Probably it is not as efficient as during sunny day, but in my opinion it's the matter of time.
Of course, now it's a problem yet, because this solution is just invented (and even I'm not sure if it wasn't just a plan, because I can't find it now).

Despite that I believe in solar energy and other harmless ways. In my opinion, it's the future.
25 November 2016 at 11:16
Unknown said…
If (hopefully only a matter of time, not that much time) we crete stable hydrogen fusion powerplants we won't have to care about other source of energy. It's almost completly eco and insanely powerfull. It will somewhat be solar energy because we will create our own little suns on earth. It sounds scary but it's almost completly safe. Even total failure of a reactor would result only in the powerplant destruction at most and little to non contamination.
26 November 2016 at 01:36
Michael Gutowski said…
I am a big fun of renewable energy sources too. It's great to see that renewable energy solutions can be stylish while serving its purpose. The idea of solar roof tiles is awesome and I hope that in 10 years it will be affordable and generally available worldwide. Also, it would be great if other companies could enter this market to boost the invention process even further.
26 November 2016 at 20:03
kondrat said…
That's why I've mentioned PowerWalls in article, which are solution to this problem :)
26 November 2016 at 20:04
kondrat said…
Im going to read about this topic, thx :)
26 November 2016 at 20:05
kondrat said…
Good competition would result in advantages for consumers :) That's also great market to start our own national business.
26 November 2016 at 20:07
Dajana Kubica said…
For me, the appearance of traditional panels is not so bad. But your solution shows that everyone can have the tiles they want, and by the way use such wonderful devices as solar panels. I hope that in the coming years we will be able to enjoy such panels on every building. Although I heard that, for example, Spain discourages its citizens to use renewable sources. They decided to tax the energy produced for own use. I hope that the rest of the countries do not go footsteps of Spain and will not introduce such reforms.
26 November 2016 at 22:54
kondrat said…
Similar thing is in Poland- if you produce your own energy you can't use it at your own. You have to sell it to energy provider, so you can't be really energy independent. :(
27 November 2016 at 14:16
Moode said…
I guess that we all should thing more about our future and making our world a cleaner place to live for us and our children. Using solar energy is one of the solutions we can choose. I also like the idea that you can get really nice UE dotation for installing the solar energy panels on your houses. I hope that our governments will encourage us more to go eco.

I hope that the prices for solar and electricity based products will go down so that we all can afford it and make the world a better and cleaner place.
27 November 2016 at 16:16
Unknown said…
Yeah, sounds scary but completly safe. The same words were said by the guy who made Chernobyl and everything exploded. Hydrogen fusion is even more dangerous.

You know what's safe? Coal. Nobody dies from coal.
27 November 2016 at 16:18
Maciej Główka said…
In my opinion, Tesla is one of the most innovative company in the world. They are making green energy affordable to normal people which is great.
I am curious when and what prices will be in Poland. I hope that before it comes to our country, our government will modify current law (for example tax reduction), so that it will be easier to build energy independent house.
I am looking forward to see what will Tesla do next.
27 November 2016 at 17:03
Kacper Zaremba said…
I think solar energy on every house is our future. It's a pity that government doesn't support people who want to install solar panels on their roofs. Moreover, in other countries when your panels are producing more energy than you can use at the moment you can sell it to your neighbours automatically. In Poland that's illegal, because only a few companies may sell electricity. Selling energy would be much easier solution than installing those batteries, which are quite expensive.
27 November 2016 at 17:08
Michał Sikorski said…
I root for such projects to succeed. Cost-efficiency seems to be the biggest problem but I think it's just a matter of time. Other problem I guess, is that it's designed mainly for single-family houses so in bigger cities it wouldn't have much use, at least in Poland.
27 November 2016 at 17:12
Unknown said…
I really like the way things around green energy is going. The fact that in a couple of years we could drive solar powered, super fast cars makes me excited. Tesla isn't the only company introducing their environmental firendly models. BMW recently started to sell i3 and i8 models build only with eco friendly materials. I guess they try to redeem themselves in the eyes of the public after several flops like series 3 compact ;)
27 November 2016 at 17:28
kondrat said…
Maybe not Tesla, but SpaceX- colonize Mars! :D
27 November 2016 at 18:31
kondrat said…
That's ridiculous part of green energy in Poland..
27 November 2016 at 18:32
kondrat said…
Of course this technology wouldn't fit to Polish post-PRL blocks. However it can be developed as solar windows, which placed on modern glass skyscrapers should deliver enough power.
27 November 2016 at 18:37
kondrat said…
Apparently compact body was really successful- that's why series 1 was introduced- as extended successor of small, rear wheel drive hatchback.

Of course there is a series for red heads, Robert! It is named BMW 2 Active Tourer- the only BMW with front wheel drive, so you can handle driving it without crashing! :D
27 November 2016 at 18:44
KamilG said…
Thanks for news from renewable energy’s world. As rest of readers, I’m really impressed by roof with solar tiles, which is an example that our technology is moving forward. In my opinion falling prices of solar panels can attract more people to buy them and „be green”, but I also think in the future there will be other ways to produce cheaper energy.
27 November 2016 at 18:57
Marcin Suska s10707 said…
That’s very futuristic topic, I’m a huge fan of green energy when it’s not about getting our energy prizes higher what happens with filters on coal plants. In our country we should more consider about geotermy energy, I have read much about this. Poland in ¾ of his surface is over the 50+ Celsius degree underground water. But truly the most important thing for me is diversification, with energy should be the same as with your wallet. So with the independent house I’d think about this 2 sources of energy and I would keep a benzin power generator just to be sure.
27 November 2016 at 20:27
Unknown said…
While travelling through the US I was so amazed when saw road signs working from the solar energy. I always thought how cool is it when during the all day batteries are charging and during the all night the signs are bright and visible. It is just a small example, but I think that the solar energy is a future. Elon Musk made a great job showing people how easy and affordable can be the using of the green energy.
27 November 2016 at 20:52
Jakub Mańkowski said…
I was very interested in the same solution but when I've calculated it - it didn't look good. Also it was shown at some kind of "Dom Expo". The solution that was better for our climate was the 10k version - especially in winter. Few months later Tesla said that they're not making it (despite the fact many people already ordered ) and if you need more power - you can stack 2x 7kWh version together and that is really pricey. About 32k just for the appliance and about 2-4k for aditional wires to separate normal and backup power (that's the right way to connect it). It would refund in about 20 years (and warranty is only for 10) - so without a special refund plan, that's a no go for me.
27 November 2016 at 21:07
Bartosz Łyżwa said…
Solar panels are the best way to start with green energy because it's really simple to use. There are some disadvantages like storing energy for a longer time but I think it's going in right way to make it less problematic. In Poland, we are just starting to build energy independent houses, cars and other things but now we have better and better access to this kind of things. Personally I would like to have a Tesla car but it's far expensive now.
27 November 2016 at 22:38
Adam Nowak said…
It would be hard to rely on solar energy only, especially in countries like Poland where you don't have so much daylight. Another question is if producing solar panels is eco-friendly. I wouldn't be suprised if procuding a solar panel would require more energy than it will deliver. And then, what about broken solar panels? You will have to recycle them somehow. I beleive that we have to develop better sources of energy. The most promising is a nuclear fusion. I think that when we finally develop a nuclear fusion reactor, then our problem with energy will dissapear for a long time.
27 November 2016 at 23:06
Maciej Spychała said…
I really hope that the solar energy will become more effective and less expensive in the near future. Right now it is a really problematic source of energy especially in colder climates,
27 November 2016 at 23:54
Unknown said…
I once read or heard somewhere that to power up the entire world with solar energy it would require a solar plant the size of Spain... and when you think about it, it's not THAT much. However, solar energy on a huge scale is hardly viable due to high maintenance costs (someone has to clean those panels) and dependency on weather. If only we could build a space elevator and start shipping solar panels to orbit where they can always face the sun and never need to be cleaned.

As for personal use, it would be great to have more green energy sources like solar panel roofs and windows (transparent solar panels are a thing now, or will be pretty soon). Everything that benefits our environment and reduces the negative impact our society has on nature would be a nice thing.
28 November 2016 at 01:49
Unknown said…
 I want say that this article is very nice and very informative article.I will make sure to be reading your blog more. 
Cost For Solar Panels For Home
Solar Pool Heating
Solar Las Vegas
2 December 2017 at 01:57
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