3D Printing Opens Opportunities For Solar Power
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March 1, 2013
While the technology has not yet made its way into widespread practical application, 3D printing has been proposed as an engineering solution for everything from medicine to moon bases. John Licata, chief energy strategist at consulting firm Blue Phoenix, suggests in a piece in The Guardian another area where the technique could mean a dramatic change - solar power.
Continuing engineering research has steadily pushed down the cost per watt of solar panels for decades, but the technology remains more expensive than traditional power sources.
Licata points out that the biggest costs for the solar industry are generally not the solar panels, but rather the installation and what is known as the balance of system costs - everything other than the actual panels like mounting, inverters and other components.
Nonetheless, manufacturing solar panels remains an energy intensive and costly process, particularly for the standard crystalline silicon solar panels that make up the bulk of the market.
The emerging 3D printing technologies offer a potential alternative to these types of manufacturing, and could even reshape the nature of solar cells themselves.
Waste Not, Want Not
One of the biggest advantages of 3D printing, which uses additive construction processes to build components from the ground up, is that it is highly precise in how it uses its materials. Components can be placed in exactly the right location in specifically determined amounts, with only a small amount of error.
Thus far, crystalline silicon has dominated the solar industry because of its advantage in terms of cost per watt. Most alternatives to silicon may cost less, but are also less efficiency, relying on small amounts of expensive substances like gallium and selenium.
One of the disadvantages of this approach is the frequency with which some of these materials will be wasted during normal production processes. The hope is that 3D printing will allow for a more precise construction process that would limit the amount of wasted material. This could further cut the production costs of thin-film solar cells, or potentially allow them to offer increased efficiency at a comparable cost.
Reshaping an industry
Licata points to one engineering innovation from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that could become much more practical with the adoption of 3D printing.
A team led by associate professor Jeffrey Grossman found that solar cells constructed as three-dimensional blocks rather than as a flat panel can offer efficiencies ranging from double to 20-times those of conventional cells.
These cubical solar cells would generally be more expensive than traditional panels, but could provide significantly more power per square foot of roof space and offer much more consistent power levels through adverse conditions, like heavy cloud cover or the limited amount of sunlight found during winter months.
While the cost of producing these types of cells remains high, the ability to construct them as a single unit with 3D printing techniques could offer a dramatic improvement.
Bringing solar to the moon
The ability to produce highly efficiency solar cells through 3D printing also offers some opportunities as far away as the moon.
Wired reports that NASA has introduced a new plan to use 3D printing to produce a base on the moon, constructed by a series of advanced six-legged factor robots. This whole process would be powered by solar panels mounted along the ridge of a crater near the southern pole of the moon.
However, the ability to produce solar panels through 3D printing would limit the amount of materials that would need to be sent into space. So long as a system could be created that would be able to effectively produce and then deploy the solar cells on-location, only the base materials would be needed to allow for further expansions.
thenews.com.pk
March 1, 2013
While the technology has not yet made its way into widespread practical application, 3D printing has been proposed as an engineering solution for everything from medicine to moon bases. John Licata, chief energy strategist at consulting firm Blue Phoenix, suggests in a piece in The Guardian another area where the technique could mean a dramatic change - solar power.
Continuing engineering research has steadily pushed down the cost per watt of solar panels for decades, but the technology remains more expensive than traditional power sources.
Licata points out that the biggest costs for the solar industry are generally not the solar panels, but rather the installation and what is known as the balance of system costs - everything other than the actual panels like mounting, inverters and other components.
Nonetheless, manufacturing solar panels remains an energy intensive and costly process, particularly for the standard crystalline silicon solar panels that make up the bulk of the market.
The emerging 3D printing technologies offer a potential alternative to these types of manufacturing, and could even reshape the nature of solar cells themselves.
Waste Not, Want Not
One of the biggest advantages of 3D printing, which uses additive construction processes to build components from the ground up, is that it is highly precise in how it uses its materials. Components can be placed in exactly the right location in specifically determined amounts, with only a small amount of error.
Thus far, crystalline silicon has dominated the solar industry because of its advantage in terms of cost per watt. Most alternatives to silicon may cost less, but are also less efficiency, relying on small amounts of expensive substances like gallium and selenium.
One of the disadvantages of this approach is the frequency with which some of these materials will be wasted during normal production processes. The hope is that 3D printing will allow for a more precise construction process that would limit the amount of wasted material. This could further cut the production costs of thin-film solar cells, or potentially allow them to offer increased efficiency at a comparable cost.
Reshaping an industry
Licata points to one engineering innovation from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that could become much more practical with the adoption of 3D printing.
A team led by associate professor Jeffrey Grossman found that solar cells constructed as three-dimensional blocks rather than as a flat panel can offer efficiencies ranging from double to 20-times those of conventional cells.
These cubical solar cells would generally be more expensive than traditional panels, but could provide significantly more power per square foot of roof space and offer much more consistent power levels through adverse conditions, like heavy cloud cover or the limited amount of sunlight found during winter months.
While the cost of producing these types of cells remains high, the ability to construct them as a single unit with 3D printing techniques could offer a dramatic improvement.
Bringing solar to the moon
The ability to produce highly efficiency solar cells through 3D printing also offers some opportunities as far away as the moon.
Wired reports that NASA has introduced a new plan to use 3D printing to produce a base on the moon, constructed by a series of advanced six-legged factor robots. This whole process would be powered by solar panels mounted along the ridge of a crater near the southern pole of the moon.
However, the ability to produce solar panels through 3D printing would limit the amount of materials that would need to be sent into space. So long as a system could be created that would be able to effectively produce and then deploy the solar cells on-location, only the base materials would be needed to allow for further expansions.
thenews.com.pk
