Australian Scientists Develop Printable A3-Sized Solar Cells Solar energy sounds like a dream, but buying and installing the equipment necessary to harness the power of the Sun can be expensive. But what if you could print your own solar panels? The researchers at Australia's Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium (VICOSC) — a collaboration between the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the University of Melbourne, Monash University and industry partners — have managed to print photovoltaic cells the size of an A3 sheet of paper. "There are so many things we can do with cells this size. We can set them into advertising signage, powering lights and other interactive elements. These cells produce 10-50 watts of power per m2, and could be used to laminate the windows of skyscrapers, giving them an additional source of power. Photovoltaic cells — the building blocks of solar panels — have been printed before, but the printing process was different. Image courtesy of CSIRO
ElectroDacus L'ENERGIE AUTREMENT Why a Typical Home Solar Setup Does Not Work With the Grid Down - And What You Can Do About It What you're seeing, and what's vital to understand, is that a solar panel will supply a certain current (at any voltage) - up to a certain point. That current is directly affected by the illumination available (the different W/m^2 curves - that's illumination power per square meter of panel area). At a certain voltage, the current starts to drop off, and eventually you hit the open circuit voltage (Voc) - the voltage the panel produces when there's no current draw. DigiKey has a great diagram that demonstrates how this works for their particular example panel. The curves change absolute values somewhat both with illumination and temperature. My east facing panels, right now, are producing 1.8A at 58V. Swing them around to face the sun, and they're operating at 7.4A at 58V. Look back at the diagram. What happens when I don't need all that power (assuming the batteries are full)? Microinverters Versus Charge Controllers/Off Grid Inverters Batteries Off Grid Without Batteries "Islanding"