Solar Terms and Applications

Now to a few basic solar terms and application types...
Solar panels,as most know, are powered by the sun and the engine that drives them are silicon wafers specially coated and doped to create electricity via the photoelectric effect.There are of course other types of panels(most commonly called modules) and break down into three basic categories--->

1)Silicon based,as explained above(These are the most common panels that have what look like tiles on the front.Also there are two basic cell types:Mono and poly crystalline.They are made from the same material but are just cut from diffrent types of silicon ingots.Monocrystalline tend to be more effecient as the crystalline structure is unbroken and thus more expensive but both types are equally viable as cell types.

2)Thinfilm based-which is a combination of metals and plastic/silicon substrates but is basically the flexible panels you see here on Ebay and other places online.....

3)Solar concentrator cells- which are silicon based for the energy exchange but use reflectors to concentrate the light that hits the silicon wafer to increase efficiency.The idea behind these was to reduce the amount of silicon used per panel,cutting customer cost.Drawback is they are not the best to look ,thus bad to have on a roof that is street visible.These are the silver looking panels.

4)Amorphous Silicon which is basically silicon chips sprayed onto a glass substrate and are the uniform looking(one color/one piece) panels most famously protrayed as the harbor freight 3 panel kits available widely on Ebay.

Each has its own disadvantages and advantages over other types but the highest sunlight to electricity conversion rates are definitely with the thinfilms and most notably CIGS(copper-indium-gallium-selinide) cells.Without getting overly complicated there are other thinfilm cells such as GAS(Gallium Arsenide),multilayer cells and of course the new wunderkind nanosolar.
Spectrolabs,which has a lock on most of the space contracts(makes sense as they are a subsidiary of Boeing) makes the highest effeciency thinfilms and have a new triple layer TF technology that is 40% efficient.As space is more radiation deficient than earth due to particulate and diffusion ratios,the highest efficiency cells must be used in space and thus thinfilms.Mars Rovers?Those are Spectro labs panels made of CIGS thinfilms.

The problem with terrestrial TF's and the future of the product is that the metals used(gallium,germanium and Indium) are very limited.There is a set amount of MW(Megawatts) of capacity that can produced and then the supply of the metals will be exhausted at the present levels of mining supply.This is where silicon based solar panels shine above all of the rest as the base material(sand) is absolutely unlimited and the manufacturing processes are being refined on an almost daily basis through market competition to reduce costs(It will be established and low cost technology).No matter what is invented or comes along as the new top dog,silicon based solar cells will be the leading source of PV power for a very long time.Any new technology takes about 5 years to be on a manufacturing schedule due to the basic fact that whoever invents said technology must find money to build a turnkey plant.Nanosolar's(the company) panels are sold out for the next 5 years.That is rated at their production EXPANSION rate,not what they can produce today.That is the other advantage of traditional crystalline panels,there are alot of producers to bring alot of product to the general public.

The present bottleneck in silicon panel supply is the capacity to refine raw silicon into 99% pure(PV grade) silicon through silane gas reformation.This will ease in a few years however and the now sellers market will turn into a buyers fiesta when new silane plants come online and the supply crisis eases. So in the short run TF's are attractive but for the long haul crystalline based tech is where the safe money will be. Concentrator cells have their place but they are band aid cells to ease the current PV silicon shortage(they use 60% less silicon per producable Watt over regular cells).Amorphous cells are very low cost to produce and is their best point but they are very low efficiency and require much larger areas to produce the same power as other cells.Eventually amorphous silicon will cease to be used as smaller and smaller panels start producing more and more power.Silicon cells do have a theoretical 25% efficiency barrier and is a limiting factor as we have reached the limit right now(sunpower panels are 21-22% efficient) but who knows what the near future will bring......

Nanosolar is a newer tech that uses microscopic silicon chips and carbon nanotubules to blend sunlight to boost effeciency.It was also just discovered that if bent in the proper direction light diffusion and radiation increases dramatically producing vast amounts of power but those technologies are years away from production schedules. The tech we have right now can be refined to bring solar to under 2$ a watt and truly be the power that was promised via nuke power as being so abundant it is unmeterable.In the state of California,right now with incentives, is cheaper than grid power.We dont have to wait for the revolution,it is already here !
Hope that isnt more confusing than helpful but ill end with a truly simple outline of typical solar systems. There are again,3 main types:

1)Grid tied-This is where you have your modules tied into the electrical grid via a "net meter" and offset your power bill-"turning your meter backwards".This is more often a suburban solution.

2)Battery Based-This is modules connected to a battery bank to store the power produced by your panels and offers the best autonomy.Grid tied systems disconnect during a blackout and offer power only if batteries are also added to the system.For cabins and remote areas is where this system is used.

3)Standalone-This is just a PV panel directly powering a remote device such as telecom equipment or water pump where battery maintenance is impossible/impractical and cost prohibitive.