Shouldnt most(or all) new buildings be covered with solar generating coatings by now?

[ModerationNow!]

About 2 years ago, I was watching a documentary that pointed out the excessive heat being generated and released back into the atmosphere by dark colored roofing materials on almost all houses and buildings. This is especially problematic in areas with naturally hot weather during much of the year. That means we are unnaturally increasing the already hot temperatures in these cities and suburbs, making everyday outdoor life even more uncomfortable.

I'm definitely not a high tech energy and electronics expert, but it's a mystery to me why someone can't develop some sort of relatively inexpensive, durable, efficient coating that can be sprayed on, or applied to the exterior roofing surfaces of houses and buildings, that will absorb solar energy from these roofing surfaces, and store it.

I was speaking with a stranger who lives in a cul de sac in my mother's development, who recently had solar panels installed on roughly 40% of his overall roof surfaces. He said the total cost was in the neighborhood of $35,000. He said it provided enough energy to fully power his 4 person family's electrical needs, including a/c in summer, in Delaware, where temps are 80s & 90s every day for most of 4 months. He's got some form of service warranty for potential problems with the system that's included in that price. It would be interesting to know how long his system will hold up before requiring panel, wiring, battery replacements. Is it worth 35 grand(??). I don't know...

But there's GOT to be a cheaper, easier way to do this, AND to cover MORE roof area! That excess electricity would be bought back by the (greedy a$$)power companies, at a (f*****g ripoff)rate. That electricity could be sold to the older buildings that don't yet have solar roof coatings, reducing the amount of compressed rotten dinosaur remains that they'll have to burn to generate power.

Are these same benevolent power companies guilty of holding back this sort of sensible technology? Remember, I did point out how they could STILL profit from it, but without having to buy, transport and burn coal or natural gas.....

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I'm definitely not a high tech energy and electronics expert, but it's a mystery to me why someone can't develop some sort of relatively inexpensive, durable, efficient coating that can be sprayed on, or applied to the exterior roofing surfaces of houses and buildings, that will absorb solar energy from these roofing surfaces, and store it.

Can't be "sprayed on" but it could be "rolled on".
It's called "thin film solar PV" and once upon a time, we invested in a company that managed to produce it on large scale large size at commercial grade quality with revolutionary efficiency numbers, so it looked like that company would be one of the forty or so that Uncle Sam took a gamble on.
Sadly, this was right at the time China decided to dump raw conventional silicon panels everywhere at dirt cheap prices and that company could not compete, because it would take another couple of years of support before they could bring their revolutionary thin film panels down to where they could compete with dumped Chinese conventional PV panels.

But the money ran out, the company went bankrupt, and everyone blamed the government for investing in a dumb idea.
Today, a couple of foreign companies are using the thin film technology. It is slightly different, and everyone says that the one company that did the large scale commercial grade panels first had good panels, and if you can get some, you're lucky.
That company was Solyndra.

But thin film is catching up again and maybe in a few years it will be able to be competitive again. For now, thin film panels are everywhere in SMALL sizes, like the kind used to charge up small devices. Not as good as the large commercial grade Solyndra thin film panels but give it time.
Sometimes investing in stuff like this is a long term idea. I don't think we currently have the patience to make long term investments like we used to. Look at the nasty crap we talk about where electric cars are concerned, it's like we cheer and jeer at failure.
We hate the Volt but we love the Prius, even though the Volt was better. I guess the Prius has the "not made here" aura.
If we had to invent the internet today, it would never come to pass, and most likely China would have invented it instead.

Ask a typical American and they think Japan invented the internet and the iPhone, and personal computers. They have no idea it all started with the USA.

Storage means batteries, and battery tech is improving at an exponential rate but again, we sneer and jeer at American failure and cheer for Japanese and Chinese success, because we don't think it is worth investing in American research and development anymore.

 

[trouble13]

About 2 years ago, I was watching a documentary that pointed out the excessive heat being generated and released back into the atmosphere by dark colored roofing materials on almost all houses and buildings. This is especially problematic in areas with naturally hot weather during much of the year. That means we are unnaturally increasing the already hot temperatures in these cities and suburbs, making everyday outdoor life even more uncomfortable.

I'm definitely not a high tech energy and electronics expert, but it's a mystery to me why someone can't develop some sort of relatively inexpensive, durable, efficient coating that can be sprayed on, or applied to the exterior roofing surfaces of houses and buildings, that will absorb solar energy from these roofing surfaces, and store it.

I was speaking with a stranger who lives in a cul de sac in my mother's development, who recently had solar panels installed on roughly 40% of his overall roof surfaces. He said the total cost was in the neighborhood of $35,000. He said it provided enough energy to fully power his 4 person family's electrical needs, including a/c in summer, in Delaware, where temps are 80s & 90s every day for most of 4 months. He's got some form of service warranty for potential problems with the system that's included in that price. It would be interesting to know how long his system will hold up before requiring panel, wiring, battery replacements. Is it worth 35 grand(??). I don't know...

But there's GOT to be a cheaper, easier way to do this, AND to cover MORE roof area! That excess electricity would be bought back by the (greedy a$$)power companies, at a (f*****g ripoff)rate. That electricity could be sold to the older buildings that don't yet have solar roof coatings, reducing the amount of compressed rotten dinosaur remains that they'll have to burn to generate power.

Are these same benevolent power companies guilty of holding back this sort of sensible technology? Remember, I did point out how they could STILL profit from it, but without having to buy, transport and burn coal or natural gas.....

As far the heat issue goes, many roofs are now white to avoid that issue

As for solar power, the current technology uses 10yr batteries and once those batteries go bad that 35k system needs another 20k in batteries. Basically any savings you had just disappeared.

Beyond that there is roof and panel issues. Reroofing requires removing the panels then reinstalling them.

The panels also need to kept clean or they lose efficiency so they need to be cleaned every month.

Long story short is that solar is good in theory but still has a lot of practicle problems. Battery cost is the biggest issue.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

You're a wee bit behind in battery prices, and your figure is for a battery bank for a six to 8 kW system, which is way larger than the typical user requires. Anyone who insists on running their window AC on solar is expecting an awful lot when your bill for JUST the AC is going to very low if that's all your paying the utility for. No way on earth a decent size central AC system can run on storage battery all night long UNLESS it's 20 thousand dollars worth of batteries. In the end, just running all the non-AC stuff and paying the utility for the AC is much cheaper and you get away with only about six to eight thousand dollars worth of batteries, or four thousand if it's a system like a Tesla Power Wall.

And not everyone goes with storage systems anyway, because a grid tied system with a decent nat-gas backup generator for outages is sometimes the best deal for lowering your utility bill, and most grid-tied system owners experience a monthly lease payment of about 150 bucks plus maybe 40 bucks for the utility for a good sized 3 or 4 BR house, which is a far cry from a former bill in the 350 to 500 range without grid tied solar.

It's not for everyone, but most people who go with solar are not in the Hell that trouble 13 is describing.
About 20 percent of my neighbors here in SoCal are grid tied solar and they're loving it and we're next, although I DO intend to do battery storage because I'm good at that sort of thing, and we already have an 8kW nat gas gennie anyway. I used to use it for small lighting jobs in film but it connects to our house in a jiffy and lately it's pretty much there full time now that work is slowing down for me in my senior years.

We don't have any trees to make anything dirty so keeping the panels clean will be a simple matter of hosing them off twice a year, whoop de doo.

 

[Excon]

Shouldnt most(or all) new buildings be covered with solar generating coatings by now?

Shouldn't?
I guess that depends if the person thinks their Government should be in the business of forcing it's citizens to do things.
If they do - then yeah. They should force new construction to have 24" insulated walls, triple pane windows and solar as well as wind for power.
If not - then don't tread on me.

 

[Tom Horn]

Why would you care about the roofing when no one cares about the stray voltage?

 

[mike2810]

As pointed out battery cost and technology is not where it should be for going total solar. Another cost not mentioned is if you have solar and develop a roof problem (leak). Got to hire a qualified person to deal with the solar panel removal before the roof can be repaired.

Then there is people like me who use very little electricity. I have discussed solar with a few companies. The cost/benefit is not there for low usage users.

 

[ModerationNow!]

Can't be "sprayed on" but it could be "rolled on".
It's called "thin film solar PV" and once upon a time, we invested in a company that managed to produce it on large scale large size at commercial grade quality with revolutionary efficiency numbers, so it looked like that company would be one of the forty or so that Uncle Sam took a gamble on.
Sadly, this was right at the time China decided to dump raw conventional silicon panels everywhere at dirt cheap prices and that company could not compete, because it would take another couple of years of support before they could bring their revolutionary thin film panels down to where they could compete with dumped Chinese conventional PV panels.

But the money ran out, the company went bankrupt, and everyone blamed the government for investing in a dumb idea.
Today, a couple of foreign companies are using the thin film technology. It is slightly different, and everyone says that the one company that did the large scale commercial grade panels first had good panels, and if you can get some, you're lucky.
That company was Solyndra.

But thin film is catching up again and maybe in a few years it will be able to be competitive again. For now, thin film panels are everywhere in SMALL sizes, like the kind used to charge up small devices. Not as good as the large commercial grade Solyndra thin film panels but give it time.
Sometimes investing in stuff like this is a long term idea. I don't think we currently have the patience to make long term investments like we used to. Look at the nasty crap we talk about where electric cars are concerned, it's like we cheer and jeer at failure.
We hate the Volt but we love the Prius, even though the Volt was better. I guess the Prius has the "not made here" aura.
If we had to invent the internet today, it would never come to pass, and most likely China would have invented it instead.

Ask a typical American and they think Japan invented the internet and the iPhone, and personal computers. They have no idea it all started with the USA.

Storage means batteries, and battery tech is improving at an exponential rate but again, we sneer and jeer at American failure and cheer for Japanese and Chinese success, because we don't think it is worth investing in American research and development anymore.

Part of the Solyndra problem was that we(the US gov't) had promised to fund Solyndra AND fund the re-startup of an already developed rare earth elements mine, AND to fund the process of getting us caught up in this industry. Those elements ALL needed to be completed in order for Solyndra to have been able to produce its products at a competitive rate, which would've made it possible for them to stay in business. Problem was, for whatever reason, Obama renegged on the promise to fund the mine, which basically pulled the rug from under the whole project. But he later changed the bankrupsy rules, ensuring that the wealthy, Democratic campaign bundling big whigs at Solyndra would be FIRST to get their money, while writing out the legal requirement that US taxpayers would be repaid for the hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies! It made no sense, if in fact they were truly motivated by a desire to put America into solar energy, unless the real motivation was paying off a major campaign donor with tax dollars.

That was just another in the long list of corruption that the media managed to completely omit from their reporting...

 

[ModerationNow!]

Shouldn't?
I guess that depends if the person thinks their Government should be in the business of forcing it's citizens to do things.
If they do - then yeah. They should force new construction to have 24" insulated walls, triple pane windows and solar as well as wind for power.
If not - then don't tread on me.

It's not about forcing anyone to do anything! Almost all houses have roofs. Is that because the gov't showed up and forced people to install their roof? No, of course not. But everyone does it because it's a necessity. My point was that, if there are viable options to make use of all that free solar energy being absorbed by your shingles, then why shouldn't this become common everywhere, simply out of financial and environmental common sense.

 

[ModerationNow!]

As pointed out battery cost and technology is not where it should be for going total solar. Another cost not mentioned is if you have solar and develop a roof problem (leak). Got to hire a qualified person to deal with the solar panel removal before the roof can be repaired.

Then there is people like me who use very little electricity. I have discussed solar with a few companies. The cost/benefit is not there for low usage users.

That's another reason why a less complicated solar roof coating would be more efficient, if they ever develop one. Its expensive enough to replace roofing shingles and plywood, but if you also must hire a separate contractor to remove a bunch of separate solar panels and frames, then that concern alone may be a deal breaker for today's systems.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Part of the Solyndra problem was that we(the US gov't) had promised to fund Solyndra AND fund the re-startup of an already developed rare earth elements mine, AND to fund the process of getting us caught up in this industry. Those elements ALL needed to be completed in order for Solyndra to have been able to produce its products at a competitive rate, which would've made it possible for them to stay in business. Problem was, for whatever reason, Obama renegged on the promise to fund the mine, which basically pulled the rug from under the whole project. But he later changed the bankrupsy rules, ensuring that the wealthy, Democratic campaign bundling big whigs at Solyndra would be FIRST to get their money, while writing out the legal requirement that US taxpayers would be repaid for the hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies! It made no sense, if in fact they were truly motivated by a desire to put America into solar energy, unless the real motivation was paying off a major campaign donor with tax dollars.

That was just another in the long list of corruption that the media managed to completely omit from their reporting...

It would be beneficial if you would link some of these items so that people can "study on it some", and learn more about the process.
The reason I say this is because Solyndra thin film units used CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-selenide) so any restart of a rare earth elements mine would by necessity have to be in the USA, but the reason our rare earths mining operations shut down is because both Clinton and Bush basically gave the technology to China in the first place by allowing Archie Cox to proceed with the sale of the company. (see Magnaquench)
Although Magnaquench was not involved in CIGS production, their move to China basically ended pretty much all rare earth businesses in the US.

At the time Magnaquench went away, American PV solar was not quite yet a large enough industry by itself to warrant investor funding to restart any rare earth businesses, even mines, in this country. I am not attempting to exonerate Clinton, Bush or Obama, just putting the whole issue in long range perspective.

The media did not wholesale omit elements of the story, it's just that a complex story of this nature does not fit into convenient two minute clips that mainstream news consumers expect.

But if one digs, one strikes pay dirt:

Solyndra founder unlikely to face criminal charges, sources say – East Bay Times

Feds Visit Homes of Solyndra CEO, Execs - ABC News

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/solyndra-obama-and-rahm-emanuel-pushed-to-spotlight-energy-company/2011/10/07/gIQACDqSTL_story.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-17/solyndra-lenders-ahead-of-government-won-t-recover-fully.html

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

That's another reason why a less complicated solar roof coating would be more efficient, if they ever develop one. Its expensive enough to replace roofing shingles and plywood, but if you also must hire a separate contractor to remove a bunch of separate solar panels and frames, then that concern alone may be a deal breaker for today's systems.

What exactly do you mean by "less complicated"?
There is no magic beanstalk that just grows the stuff. Photovoltaic material is difficult to manufacture and it does not lend itself to just become "a coating", you have to construct some type of "panel" or sheet.

Tesla's solar roofing shingles seem to work.
They may even cost less than a standard roof.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Why would you care about the roofing when no one cares about the stray voltage?

Stray WHAT?

 

[Excon]

It's not about forcing anyone to do anything! Almost all houses have roofs. Is that because the gov't showed up and forced people to install their roof? No, of course not. But everyone does it because it's a necessity. My point was that, if there are viable options to make use of all that free solar energy being absorbed by your shingles, then why shouldn't this become common everywhere, simply out of financial and environmental common sense.

If the Government makes it a requirement then of course it is an issue of forcing.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Shouldn't?
I guess that depends if the person thinks their Government should be in the business of forcing it's citizens to do things.
If they do - then yeah. They should force new construction to have 24" insulated walls, triple pane windows and solar as well as wind for power.
If not - then don't tread on me.

Also make sure you don't wear that bicycle helmet or buckle your seat belt. Don't tread on me! LOL!

 

[Excon]

Also make sure you don't wear that bicycle helmet or buckle your seat belt. Don't tread on me! LOL!

Absolutely.
If you do not wish to ensure your safety, by all means.
You should not be forced by government.


Now if you do not like increased insurance premiums, that is a different story, but still individual choice.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Absolutely.
If you do not wish to ensure your safety, by all means.
You should not be forced by government.


Now if you do not like increased insurance premiums, that is a different story, but still individual choice.

No I have to disagree. When you don't wear the helmet or buckle up you create more use of our limited medical and emergency resources. If it truly affected only the individual I wouldn't care but it doesn't. Easily preventable injuries or reduced injuries benefits all and helps reduce costs for all. I guess you could be selfish and not wear your seat belt or helmet in the name of individual choice and freedom.

 

[Excon]

No I have to disagree.

That is because you have an absurd point of view.

When you don't wear the helmet or buckle up you create more use of our limited medical and emergency resources.

Like I said, absurd point of view
These so-called resources, by those who provide them (not ours), are just fine and were created for sale under such circumstances.

If it truly affected only the individual I wouldn't care but it doesn't. Easily preventable injuries or reduced injuries benefits all and helps reduce costs for all.

Like I said, absurd point of view.
The government is there to govern, not provide for, and certainly not to prevent these things.
But like I said, absurd view point. You do not what a government, you want a nanny state

I guess you could be selfish and not wear your seat belt or helmet in the name of individual choice and freedom.

Like I said, absurd view point.
You clearly do not know what selfish is. Wanting others to contribute to your healthcare would be.

 

[Hari Seldon]

That is because you have an absurd point of view.

Like I said, absurd point of view
These so-called resources, by those who provide them (not ours), are just fine and were created for sale under such circumstances.


Like I said, absurd point of view.
The government is there to govern, not provide for, and certainly not to prevent these things.
But like I said, absurd view point. You do not what a government, you want a nanny state


Like I said, absurd view point.
You clearly do not know what selfish is. Wanting others to contribute to your healthcare would be.

You know what you can do with your "absurd point of view". You also have a comprehension problem. I said nothing about others contributing to my healthcare. Absolutely nothing. I tried being reasonable but you are obstinate as usual. Bye.

 

[Excon]

You also have a comprehension problem.

Wrong, and also an absurd point of view.

I said nothing about others contributing to my healthcare. Absolutely nothing.

:lamo Talking about comprehension problems.
Did I say you did say any such thing? Or did I just make an in-general "your" comment instead of using "their"?

I tried being reasonable but you are obstinate as usual. Bye.

iLOL Your absurd point of view isn't reasonable, especially the nonsense about resources.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Last word freak, can't contribute bupkus to the actual subject of the thread, attempts to hijack it instead.