1092
Solar modules deployed in France in 1992 still provide 75.9% of original output power
(www.pv-magazine.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
1092 points (99.7% liked)
Technology
59370 readers
4570 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
"performed much worse" is compared to today's manufactured panels. As an example, a 100w panel in 1992 was likely around 12% efficient. This means "of all the light energy hitting the full panel under perfect light and temperature conditions", 12% of that energy is converted to electricity and would produce 100w. Compare this to a middle-of-the-road panel you'd buy for your house today the efficiency is 21%. Both the old and the new panel's efficiency will go down over the years.
What the article is talking about is how much of the original efficiency is retained over the years in real world tests. Lets say we have a 1992 100w panel from my example above at 12% efficiency. That means under the best possible conditions it would generate 100w. Because of age, the article notes that efficiency has degrade to produce 79.5% of its original rating. Meaning this 1992 100w panel today would generate 79.5w. That's still pretty darn good and useful!
Great explanation.
One other point I see I left out was physical size of panel as related to efficiency of converting light to electricity and the reason that 2024's 22% efficiency is so important over 1992's 12%. The 2024 100w panel will be about half the size of the 1992 100w panel. This is important because space to put panels (and cost per panel) are large factors in being able to install solar. So you'd be able to install many more 2024 100w panels in the same space as 1992 100w panels.